Podcasts about yahoo messenger

In a special episode of our Onyx Leadership podcast series, Group CEO Greg Newman sits down with Jorge Montepeque, the new Managing Director - Benchmarking. Jorge, an industry legend, pioneered oil pricing by introducing benchmarks, revolutionising communication across different sites worldwide.When Greg first started trading, most traders relied on Yahoo Messenger for precise time stamps. Then came Jorge, reinventing communication, making it faster and introducing a platform enabling traders to communicate down to the millisecond—a game-changer for the oil trading world.With over forty years of experience, Jorge is an icon and a pivotal figure in the oil industry. Do not miss this must-watch episode.

Hear the extraordinary journey of a leading Trauma Consultant and how he struggled during his early life against all odds. Mr Ansar Mahmood shares life lessons that are applicable to all of us. Key topics covered in this episode:

I had fun chatting with Aarthi and Sriram.We discuss what it takes to be successful in technology, what Sriram would say if Elon tapped him to be the next CEO of Twitter, why more married couples don't start businesses together, and how Aarthi hires and finds 10x engineers.Aarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan are the hosts of The Good Times Show. They have had leading roles in several technology companies from Meta to Twitter to Netflix and have been founders and investors. Sriram is currently a general partner at a16z crypto and Aarthi is an angel investor.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Timestamps(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:19) - Married Couples Co-founding Businesses(00:09:53) - 10x Engineers(00:16:00) - 15 Minute Meetings(00:22:57) - a16z's Edge?(00:26:42) - Future of Twitter(00:30:58) - Is Big Tech Overstaffed?(00:38:37) - Next CEO of Twitter?(00:43:13) - Why Don't More Venture Capitalists Become Founders?(00:47:32) - Role of Boards(00:52:03) - Failing Upwards(00:56:00) - Underrated CEOs(01:02:18) - Founder Education(01:06:27) - What TV Show Would Sriram Make?(01:10:14) - Undervalued Founder ArchetypesTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.[00:00:00] Aarthi: it's refreshing to have Elon come in and say, we are gonna work really hard. We are gonna be really hardcore about how we build things.[00:00:05] Dwarkesh: Let's say Elon and says Tomorrow, Sriram, would you be down to be the [00:00:08] Sriram: CEO of Twitter Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I am married to someone. We [00:00:12] Aarthi: used to do overnights at Microsoft. Like we'd just sleep under our desk,, until the janitor would just , poke us out of there , I really need to vacuum your cubicle. Like, get out of here. There's such joy in , Finding those moments where you work hard and you're feeling really good about it. [00:00:25] Sriram: You'd be amazed at how many times Aarthi and I would have a conversation where be, oh, this algorithm thing.I remember designing it, and now we are on the other side We want to invest in something , where we think the team and the company is going to win and if they do win, there's huge value to be unlocked. [00:00:40] Dwarkesh: Okay. Today I have the, uh, good pleasure to have Arty and Sriram on the podcast and I'm really excited about this.So you guys have your own show, the Arty Andre Good Time show. Um, you guys have had some of the top people in tech and entertainment on Elon Musk, mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Yang, and you guys are both former founders. Advisors, investors, uh, general partner at Anderson Horowitz, and you're an angel investor and an advisor now.Um, so yeah, there's so much to talk about. Um, obviously there's also the, uh, recent news about your, uh, your involvement on, uh, twitter.com. Yeah, yeah. Let's get started. [00:01:19] Married Couples Starting Businesses[00:01:19] Dwarkesh: My first question, you guys are married, of course. People talk about getting a co-founder as finding a spouse, and I'm curious why it's not the case that given this relationship why more married people don't form tech startups.Is, does that already happen, [00:01:35] Aarthi: or, um, I actually am now starting to see a fair bit of it. Uhhuh, . Um, I, I do agree that wasn't a norm before. Um, I think, uh, I, I think I remember asking, uh, pg p the same thing when I went through yc, and I think he kind of pointed to him and Jessica like, you know, YC was their startup , and so, you know, there were even pride.There are a lot of husband and wife, uh, companies. Over the last like decade or so. So I'm definitely seeing that more mainstream. But yeah, you're right, it hasn't been the norm before. Yeah, the, the good time show is our project. It's [00:02:09] Sriram: our startup. Very, I mean, there are some good historical examples. Cisco, for example, uh, came from, uh, uh, husband, wife as a few other examples.I think, you know, on, on the, in, on the pro side, uh, you know, being co-founders, uh, you need trust. You need to really know each other. Uh, you, you go through a lot of like heavy emotional burdens together. And there's probably, and if you, you're for the spouse, hopefully you probably have a lot of chemistry and understanding, and that should help.On the con side, I think one is you, you're prob you know, you, you're gonna show up at work, you know, and startups are really hard, really intense. And you come home and both of you are gonna the exact same wavelength, the exact same time, going through the exact same highs and lows as opposed to two people, two different jobs have maybe differing highs and lows.So that's really hard. Uh, the second part of it is, uh, in a lot of. Work situations, it may just be more challenging where people are like, well, like, you know, person X said this person Y said this, what do I do? Uh, and if you need to fire somebody or you know, something weird happens corporate in a corporate manner, that may also be really hard.Uh, but having said that, you know, uh, [00:03:13] Aarthi: you know, yeah, no, I think both of those are like kind of overblown , like, you know, I think the reason why, um, you know, you're generally, they say you need to have you, it's good to have co-founders is so that you can kind of like write the emotional wave in a complimentary fashion.Uh, and you know, if one person's like really depressed about something, the other person can like pull them out of it and have a more rational viewpoint. I feel like in marriages it works even better. So I feel like to your first point, They know each other really well. You're, you're, you are going to bring your work to home.There is no separation between work and home as far as a startup is concerned. So why not do it together? Oh, [00:03:51] Sriram: well, I think there's one problem, uh, which is, uh, we are kind of unique because we've been together for over 21 years now, and we start for, we've been before, uh, let's not. Wow. There's gonna be some fact checking 19 on this video.99. Close enough. Close enough, right? Like close enough. He wishes he was 21. Oh, right, right, right. Gosh, feels like 21. We have do some, um, [00:04:15] Aarthi: editing on this video. No, no, no. I think 20 years of virtually knowing, 19 years of in-person. [00:04:20] Sriram: There we go. Right. Uh, fact check accurate. Um, ex experts agree. But, um, you know, but when you first met, we, we originally, even before we dating, we were like, Hey, we wanna do a company together.And we bonded over technology, like our first conversation on Yahoo Messenger talking about all these founders and how we wanted to be like them. And we actually then worked together pretty briefly when you were in Microsoft. Uh, before we actually started dating. We were on these sort of talent teams and we kind of met each of the word context.I think a lot of. You know, one is they have never worked together. Um, and so being in work situations, everything from how you run a meeting to how you disagree, uh, you know, uh, is just going to be different. And I think that's gonna be a learning curve for a lot of couples who be like, Hey, it's one thing to have a strong, stable relationship at home.It'll be a different thing to, you know, be in a meeting and you're disagreeing art's meetings very differently from I do. She obsesses over metrics. I'm like, ah, it's close enough. It's fine. , uh, it's close enough. It's fine. as e uh, here already. But, uh, so I do think there's a learning curve, a couples who is like, oh, working together is different than, you know, raising your family and being together.I mean, obviously gives you a strong foundation, but it's not the same thing. Have you guys [00:05:25] Dwarkesh: considered starting a company or a venture together at some point? [00:05:28] Aarthi: Yeah. Um, we've, uh, we've always wanted to do a project together. I don't know if it's a, a startup or a company or a venture. You have done a project together,Yeah, exactly. I think, uh, almost to today. Two years ago we started the Good Time Show, um, and we started at, uh, live Audio on Clubhouse. And, you know, we recently moved it onto video on YouTube. And, um, it's, it's been really fun because now I get to see like, it, it's neither of our full-time jobs, uh, but we spend enough, um, just cycles thinking through what we wanna do with it and what, uh, how to have good conversations and how to make it useful for our audience.So that's our [00:06:06] Sriram: project together. Yep. And we treat it like a, with the intellectual heft of a startup, which is, uh, we look at the metrics, uh, and we are like, oh, this is a good week. The metrics are up into the right and, you know, how do we, you know, what is working for our audience? You know, what do we do to get great guests?What do we do to [00:06:21] Aarthi: get, yeah, we just did our first, uh, in-person meetup, uh, for listeners of the podcast in Chennai. It was great. We had like over a hundred people who showed up. And it was also like, you know, typical startup style, like meet your customers and we could like go talk to these people in person and figure out like what do they like about it?Which episodes do they really enjoy? And it's one thing to see YouTube comments, it's another to like actually in person engage with people. So I think, you know, we started it purely accidentally. We didn't really expect it to be like the show that we are, we are in right now, but we really happy. It's, it's kind of turned out the way it has.[00:06:59] Sriram: Absolutely. And, and it also kind of helps me scratch an edge, which is, uh, you know, building something, you know, keeps you close to the ground. So being able to actually do the thing yourself as opposed to maybe tell someone else, telling you how to do the, so for example, it, it being video editing or audio or how thumbnails, thumbnails or, uh, just the mechanics of, you know, uh, how to build anything.So, uh, I, I dot think it's important. Roll up your sleeves metaphorically and get your hands dirty and know things. And this really helped us understand the world of creators and content. Uh, and it's fun and [00:07:31] Aarthi: go talk to other creators. Uh, like I think when we started out this thing on YouTube, I think I remember Shram just reached out to like so many creators being like, I wanna understand how it works for you.Like, what do you do? And these are people who like, who are so accomplished, who are so successful, and they do this for a living. And we clearly don. And so, uh, just to go learn from these experts. It's, it's kind of nice, like to be a student again and to just learn, uh, a new industry all over again and figure out how to actually be a creator on this platform.Well, you know [00:08:01] Dwarkesh: what's really interesting is both of you have been, uh, executives and led product in social media companies. Yeah. And so you are, you designed the products, these creators, their music, and now on the other end, you guys are building [00:08:12] Sriram: the, oh, I have a great phrase for it, right? Like, somebody, every once in a while somebody would be like, Hey, you know what, uh, you folks are on the leadership team of some of these companies.Why don't you have hundreds of millions of followers? Right? And I would go, Hey, look, it's not like every economist is a billionaire, , uh, uh, you know, it doesn't work that way. Uh, but during that is a parallel, which, which is, uh, you'd be amazed at how many times Aarthi and I would have a conversation where be, oh, this algorithm thing.I remember designing it, or I was in the meeting when this thing happened, and now we are on the other side, which is like, Hey, you might be the economist who told somebody to implement a fiscal policy. And now we are like, oh, okay, how do I actually go do this and create values and how? Anyway, how do we do exactly.Create an audience and go build something interesting. So there is definitely some irony to it, uh, where, uh, but I think hopefully it does give us some level of insight where, uh, we have seen, you know, enough of like what actually works on social media, which is how do you build a connection with your audience?Uh, how do you build, uh, content? How do you actually do it on a regular, uh, teams? I think [00:09:07] Aarthi: the biggest difference is we don't see the algorithm as a bra, as a black box. I think we kind of see it as like when the, with the metrics, we are able to, one, have empathy for the teams building this. And two, I think, uh, we kind of know there's no big magic bullet.Like I think a lot of this is about showing up, being really consistent, um, you know, being able to like put out some really interesting content that people actually want to, and you know, I think a lot of people forget about that part of it and kind of focus. If you did this one thing, your distribution goes up a lot and here's this like, other like secret hack and you know Sure.Like those are like really short term stuff, but really in the long term, the magic is to just like keep at it. Yeah. And, uh, put out really, really good content. [00:09:48] Sriram: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's good to hear. . [00:09:53] 10x Engineers[00:09:53] Dwarkesh: Um, so you've both, um, led teams that have, you know, dozens or even hundreds of people.Um, how easy is it for you to tell who the 10 X engineers are? Is it something that you as managers and executives can tell easily or [00:10:06] Sriram: no? Uh, absolutely. I think you can tell this very easily or repeat of time and it doesn't, I think a couple of ways. One is, uh, Uh, before, let's say before you work with someone, um, 10 x people just don't suddenly start becoming 10 x.They usually have a history of becoming 10 x, uh, of, you know, being really good at what they do. And you can, you know, the cliche line is you can sort of connect the dots. Uh, you start seeing achievements pile up and achievements could be anything. It could be a bunch of projects. It could be a bunch of GitHub code commits.It could be some amazing writing on ck, but whatever it is, like somebody just doesn't show up and become a 10 x person, they probably have a track record of already doing it. The second part of it is, I've seen this is multiple people, uh, who are not named so that they don't get hired from the companies actually want them to be in, or I can then hire them in the future is, uh, you know, they will make incredibly rapid progress very quickly.So, uh, I have a couple of examples and almost independently, I know it's independently, so I have a couple of. Um, and I actually, and name both, right? Like, so one is, uh, this guy named, uh, Vijay Raji, uh, who, uh, was probably one of Facebook's best engineers. He's now the CEO of a company called Stats. And, um, he was probably my first exposure to the real TenX engineer.And I remembered this because, uh, you know, at the time I was. Kind of in my twenties, I had just joined Facebook. I was working on ads, and he basically built a large part of Facebook's ad system over the weekend. And what he would do is he would just go, and then he con he [00:11:24] Aarthi: continued to do that with Facebook marketplace.Yeah. Like he's done this like over and over and over [00:11:28] Sriram: again. . Yeah. And, and it's not that, you know, there's one burst of genius. It's just this consistent stream of every day that's a code checkin stuff is working. New demo somebody, he sent out a new bill or something working. And so before like a week or two, you just like a, you know, you running against Usain Bolt and he's kind of running laps around you.He's so far ahead of everyone else and you're like, oh, this guy is definitely ahead. Uh, the second story I have is, uh, of, uh, John Carmack, uh, you know, who's legend and I never worked with him in, uh, directly with, you know, hopefully someday I can fix. But, uh, somebody told me a story about him. Which is, uh, that the person told me story was like, I never thought a individual could replace the output of a hundred percent team until I saw John.And there's a great story where, um, you know, and so John was the most senior level at Facebook and from a hr, you know, employment insecurity perspective for an individual contributor, and it at, at that level, at Facebook, uh, for folks who kind of work in these big tech companies, it is the most, the highest tier of accomplishment in getting a year in a performance review is something called xcs Expectations, or, sorry, redefines, right?Which basically means like, you have redefined what it means for somebody to perform in this level, right? Like, it's like somebody, you know, like somebody on a four minute mile, I'll be running a two minute mile or whatever, right? You're like, oh, and, and it is incredibly hard sometimes. You doing, and this guy John gets it three years in a row, right?And so there's this leadership team of all the, you know, the really most important people on Facebook. And they're like, well, we should really promote John, right? Like, because he's done this three years in a row, he's changing the industry. Three years in a row and then they realized, oh wait, there is no level to promote him to Nick be CEOWell, maybe I don't think he wanted to. And so, uh, the story I heard, and I dunno, it's true, but I like to believe it's true, is they invented a level which still now only John Carmack has gotten. Right. And, um, and I think, you know, it's his level of productivity, uh, his, uh, intellect, uh, and the consistency over time and mu and you know, if you talk to anybody, Facebook work with him, he's like, oh, he replaced hundred people, teams all by themselves and maybe was better than a hundred percent team just because he had a consistency of vision, clarity, and activity.So those are [00:13:32] Aarthi: the two stories I've also noticed. I think, uh, actually sheam, I think our first kind of exposure to 10 x engineer was actually Barry born, uh, from Microsoft. So Barry, um, uh, basically wrote pretty much all the emulation engines and emulation systems that we all use, uh, and uh, just prolific, uh, and I think in addition to what Fred had said with like qualities and tenets, Um, the, I've generally seen these folks to also be like low ego and kind of almost have this like responsibility to, um, mentor coach other people.Uh, and Barry kind of like took us under his wing and he would do these like Tuesday lunches with us, where we would just ask like, you know, we were like fresh out of college and we just ask these like really dumb questions on, you know, um, scaling things and how do you build stuff. And I was working on, uh, run times and loaders and compilers and stuff.And so he would just take the time to just answer our questions and just be there and be really like, nice about it. I remember when you moved to Redmond, he would just like spend a weekend just like, oh yeah. Driving you about and just doing things like that, but very low ego and within their teams and their art, they're just considered to be legends.Yes. Like, you know, everybody would be like, oh, Barry Bond. Yeah, of course. [00:14:47] Sriram: Yeah. It, I can't emphasize enough the consistency part of it. Um, you know, with Barry. Or I gotta briefly work with Dave Cutler, who's kind of the father of modern operating systems, uh, is every day you're on this email li list at the time, which would show you check-ins as they happen.They would have something every single day, um, every day, and it'll be tangible and meaty and you know, and you just get a sense that this person is not the same as everybody else. Um, by the, this couple of people I can actually point to who haven't worked with, uh, but I follow on YouTube or streaming. Uh, one is, uh, Andrea Ling who builds Serenity Os we had a great episode with him.Oh, the other is George Hart's, uh, geo Hart. And I urge people, if you haven't, I haven't worked with either of them, uh, but if I urge which to kinda watch their streams, right? Because, uh, you go like, well, how does the anti killing build a web browser on an operating system? Which he builds by himself in such a sharp period of time and he watches stream and he's not doing some magical new, you know, bit flipping sorting algorithm anybody has, nobody has seen before.He's just doing everything you would do, but. Five bits of speed. I, yep, exactly. [00:15:48] Dwarkesh: I I'm a big fan of the George Hot Streams and Yeah, that's exactly what, you know, it's like yeah, you, he's also curling requests and he is also, you know, you know, spinning up an experiment in a Jupyter Notebook, but yeah, just doing it [00:15:58] Aarthi: away way faster, way efficiently.Yeah. [00:16:00] 15 Minute Meetings[00:16:00] Dwarkesh: Yeah. That's really interesting. Um, so ar Arthur, I'm, you've gone through Y Combinator and famously they have that 15 minute interview Yes. Where they try to grok what your business is and what your potential is. Yeah, yeah. But just generally, it seems like in Silicon Valley you guys have, make a lot of decisions in terms of investing or other kinds of things.You, in very short calls, you know. Yeah. . Yeah. And how much can you really, what is it that you're learning in these 15 minute calls when you're deciding, should I invest in this person? What is their potential? What is happening in that 15 minutes? [00:16:31] Aarthi: Um, I can speak about YC from the other side, from like, uh, being a founder pitching, right.I think, yes, there is a 15 minute interview, but before that, there is a whole YC application process. And, uh, I think even for the, for YC as, uh, this bunch of the set of investors, I'm sure they're looking for specific signals, but for me as a founder, the application process was so useful, um, because it really makes you think about what you're building.Why are you building this? Are you the right person to be building this? Who are the other people you should be hiring? And so, I mean, there are like few questions or like, one of my favorite questions is, um, how have you hacked a non-computer system to your advantage? Yeah. . And it kind of really makes you think about, huh, and you kind of noticed that many good founders have that pattern of like hacking other systems to their advantage.Um, and so to me, I think more than the interview itself, the process of like filling out the application form, doing that little video, all of that gives you better, um, it gives you the, the entire scope of your company in your head because it's really hard when you have this idea and you're kind of like noodling about with it and talking to a few people.You don't really know if this is a thing. To just like crystallize the whole vision in your head. I think, uh, that's on point. Yes. Um, the 15 minute interview for me, honestly, it was like kind of controversial because, uh, I went in that morning, I did the whole, you know, I, I had basically stayed at the previous night, uh, building out this website and, uh, that morning I showed up and I had my laptop open.I'm like really eager to like tell them what you're building and I keep getting cut off and I realize much later that that's kind of my design. Yeah. And you just like cut off all the time. Be like, why would anybody use this? And you start to answer and be like, oh, but I, I don't agree with that. And there's just like, and it, it's like part of it is like, makes you upset, but part of it is also like, it makes you think how to compress all that information in a really short amount of time and tell them.Um, and so that interview happens, I feel really bummed out because I kind of had this website I wanted to show them. So while walking out the door, I remember just showing Gary, Dan, um, the website and he like kind of like. Scrolls it a little bit, and he is like, this is really beautifully done. And I was like, thank you.I've been wanting to show you this for 15 minutes. Um, and I, I mentioned it to Gary recently and he laughed about it. And then, uh, I didn't get selected in that timeframe. They gave me a call and they said, come back again in the evening and we are going to do round two because we are not sure. Yeah. And so the second interview there was PG and Jessica and they both were sitting there and they were just grueling me.It was a slightly longer interview and PG was like, I don't think this is gonna work. And I'm like, how can you say that? I think this market's really big. And I'm just like getting really upset because I've been waiting this whole day to like get to this point. And he's just being like cynical and negative.And then at some point he starts smiling at Jessica and I'm like, oh, okay. They're just like baiting me to figure it out. And so that was my process. And I, by the evening, I remember Shera was working at. I remember driving down from Mountain View to Facebook and Sheam took me to the Sweet Stop. Oh yeah.Which is like their, you know, Facebook has this like, fancy, uh, sweet store, like the ice cream store. I [00:19:37] Sriram: think they had a lot more perks over the years, but that was very fancy back then. [00:19:40] Aarthi: So I had like two scoops of ice cream in each hand in, and, uh, the phone rang and I was like, oh, hold onto this. And I grabbed it and I, and you know, I think it was Michael Sibu or I don't know who, but somebody called me and said, you're through.So that was kind of my process. So even though there was only 15 minutes, mine was actually much longer after. But even before the, the application process was like much more detailed. So it sounds [00:20:01] Dwarkesh: like the 15 minutes it's really there. Like, can they rattle you? Can they, can they [00:20:06] Aarthi: you and how do you react?Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I also think they look for how sex you can be in explaining what the problem is. They do talk to hundreds of companies. It is a lot. And so I think, can you compress a lot of it and convince, if you can convince these folks here in three months or four months time, how are you going to do demo day and convince a whole room full of investors?[00:20:27] Sriram: Yeah. Yeah. For, I think it's a bit different for us, uh, on the VC side, uh, because two things. One, number one is, uh, the day, you know, so much of it is having a prepared mind before you go into the meeting. And, for example, if you're meeting a. very early. Are we investing before having met every single other person who's working in this space, who has ideas in the space.So you generally know what's going on, you know, what the kind of technologies are or go to market approaches are. You've probably done a bunch of homework already. It's usually, uh, it does happen where you meet somebody totally cold and uh, you really want to invest, but most often you've probably done some homework at least in this space, if not the actual company.Um, and so when you're in the meeting, I think you're trying to judge a couple of things. And these are obviously kind of stolen from Christ Dixon and others. Um, one is their ability to kind of go walk you through their idea, ma. And so very simply, um, you know, the idea MAs is, uh, and I think say the biology of Christen came with this, the idea that, hey, um, uh, How you got to the idea for your company really matters because you went and explored all the data ends, all the possibilities.You're managing around for years and years, and you've kind of come to the actual solution. And the way you can tell whether somebody's gone through the idea Mac, is when you ask 'em questions and they tell you about like five different things they've tried, did not work. And it, it's really hard to fake it.I mean, we, you maybe fake it for like one or two questions, but if you talk about like how we tried X, Y, and Z and they have like an opinion what of the opinions, if they've thought about it, you're like, okay, this person really studied the idea, ma. And that's very powerful. Uh, the second part of it is, uh, you know, Alex sample.Uh, uh, one of my partner says this, Yes, some this thing called the Manifestation Framework, which sounds like a self-help book on Amazon, but it's not, uh, uh uh, you know, but what if is, is like, you know, so many, so much of early stage startup founders is about the ability to manifest things. Uh, manifest capital, manifest the first hire, uh, manifest, uh, the first BD partnership.And, um, usually, you know, if you can't, if you don't have a Cigna sign of doing that, it's really hard to then after raising money, go and close this amazing hotshot engineer or salesperson or close this big partnership. And so in the meeting, right? If you can't convince us, right? And these are people, our day job is to give you money, right?Like, if I spent a year without giving anybody money, I'll probably get fired. If you can't, uh, if you can't convince us to give you money, right? If you wanna find probably a hard time to close this amazing engineer and get that person to come over from Facebook or close this amazing partnership against a competitor.And so that's kind of a judge of that. So it is never about the actual 60 Minutes where you're like, we, we are making up of a large part of makeup of mind is. That one or two conversations, but there's so much which goes in before and after that. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of [00:22:57] What is a16z's edge?[00:22:57] Dwarkesh: venture capital, um, I, I'm curious, so interest and Horowitz, and I guess why Combinator too?Um, but I mean, any other person who's investing in startups, they were started at a time when there were much less capital in the space, and today of course, there's been so much more capital pour into space. So how do these firms, like how does A 16 C continue to have edge? What is this edge? How can I sustain it [00:23:20] Sriram: given the fact that so much more capital is entered into the space?We show up on podcasts like the Lunar Society, , and so if you are watching this and you have a startup idea, Uh, come to us, right? Uh, no. Come, come to the Lunar society. . Well, yes. I mean, maybe so Trust me, you go in pat, you're gonna have a find, uh, a Thk pat right there. Uh, actually I, you think I joked, but there's a bit of truth.But no, I've had [00:23:40] Dwarkesh: like lu this [00:23:40] Aarthi: suddenly became very different [00:23:43] Sriram: conversation. I have had people, this is a totally ludicrous [00:23:46] Dwarkesh: idea, but I've had people like, give me that idea. And it's like, it sounds crazy to me because like, I don't know what, it's, what a company's gonna be successful, right? So, but I hasn't [00:23:55] Aarthi: become an investor.[00:23:57] Sriram: I honestly don't know. But it is something like what you're talking about Lu Society Fund one coming up, right? You heard it here first? Uh, uh, well, I think first of all, you know, I think there's something about the firm, uh, um, in terms of how it's set up philosophically and how it's set up, uh, kind of organizationally, uh, and our approach philosoph.The firm is an optimist, uh, uh, more than anything else. At the core of it, we are optimist. We are optimist about the future. We are optimist about the impact of founders on their, on the liberty to kind of impact that future. Uh, we are optimist at heart, right? Like I, I tell people like, you can't work at a six and z if you're not an optimist.That's at the heart of everything that we do. Um, and very tied to that is the idea that, you know, um, software is eating the world. It is, it's true. 10 years ago when Mark wrote that, peace is as true now, and we just see more and more of it, right? Like every week, you know, look at the week we are recording this.You know, everyone's been talking about chat, G p T, and like all the industries that can get shaped by chat, G P T. So our, our feature, our, our idea is that software is gonna go more and more. So, one way to look at this is, yes, a lot more capitalists enter the world, but there should be a lot more, right?Like, because these companies are gonna go bigger. They're gonna have bigger impacts on, uh, human lives and, and the world at large. So that's, uh, you know, uh, one school of thought, the other school of thought, uh, which I think you were asking about, say valuations, uh, et cetera. Is, uh, you know, um, again, one of my other partners, Jeff Jordan, uh, uh, always likes to tell people like, we don't go discount shopping, right?Our, the way we think about it is we want to, when we're investing in a market, We want to really map out the market, right? Uh, so for example, I work on crypto, uh, and, uh, you know, we, you know, if, if you are building something interesting in crypto and we haven't seen you, we haven't talked to you, that's a fail, that's a mess, right?We ideally want to see every single interesting founder company idea. And a category can be very loose. Crypto is really big. We usually segmented something else. Or if you look at enterprise infrastructure, you can take them into like, you know, AI or different layers and so on. But once you map out a category, you want to know everything.You wanna know every interesting person, every interesting founder you wanna be abreast of every technology change, every go to market hack, every single thing. You wanna know everything, right? And then, uh, the idea is that, uh, we would love to invest in, you know, the what is hopefully becomes the market.Set category, uh, or you know, somebody who's maybe close to the, the market leader. And our belief is that these categories will grow and, you know, they will capture huge value. Um, and as a whole, software is still can used to be undervalued by, uh, a, you know, the world. So, um, we, so, which is why, again, going back to what Jeff would say, he's like, we are not in the business of oh, we are getting a great deal, right?We, we are like, we want to invest in something which, where we think the team and the company and their approach is going to win in this space, and we want to help them win. And we think if they do win, there's a huge value to be unlocked. Yeah, I see. I see. Um, [00:26:42] Future of Twitter[00:26:42] Dwarkesh: let's talk about Twitter. [00:26:44] Sriram: Uh, . I need a drink. I need a drink.[00:26:48] Dwarkesh: um, Tell me, what is the future of Twitter? What is the app gonna look like in five years? You've, um, I mean obviously you've been involved with the Musk Venture recently, but, um, you've, you've had a senior position there. You were an executive there before a few years ago, and you've also been an executive at, uh, you've both been at Meta.So what [00:27:06] Sriram: is the future of Twitter? It's gonna be entertaining. Uh, uh, what is it El say the most entertaining outcome is the most, [00:27:12] Aarthi: uh, uh, like, best outcome is the most, uh, most likely outcome is the most entertaining outcome. [00:27:16] Sriram: Exactly right. So I think it's gonna be the most entertaining outcome. Um, I, I mean, I, I, I think a few things, uh, first of all, uh, ideally care about Twitter.Yeah. Uh, and all of my involvement, uh, you know, over the years, uh, uh, professionally, you know, uh, has, it's kind of. A lagging indicator to the value I got from the service person. I have met hundreds of people, uh, through Twitter. Uh, hundreds of people have reached out to me. Thousands. Exactly. Uh, and you know, I met Mark Andresen through Twitter.Uh, I met like, you know, uh, people are not very good friends of mine. We met through Twitter. We met at Twitter, right. There we go. Right. Uh, just [00:27:50] Aarthi: like incredible outsized impact. Yeah. Um, and I think it's really hard to understate that because, uh, right now it's kind of easy to get lost in the whole, you know, Elon, the previous management bio, like all of that.Outside of all of that, I think the thing I like to care about is, uh, focus on is the product and the product experience. And I think even with the product experience that we have today, which hasn't like, dramatically changed from for years now, um, it's still offering such outsized value for. If you can actually innovate and build really good product on top, I think it can, it can just be really, really good for humanity overall.And I don't even mean this in like a cheesy way. I really think Twitter as a tool could be just really, really effective and enormously good for everyone. Oh yeah. [00:28:35] Sriram: Twitter is I think, sort of methodically upstream of everything that happens in culture in uh, so many different ways. Like, um, you know, there was this, okay, I kinda eli some of the details, uh, but like a few years ago I remember there was this, uh, sort of this somewhat salacious, controversial story which happened in entertainment and uh, and I wasn't paying attention to, except that something caught my eye, which was that, uh, every story had the same two tweets.And these are not tweets from any famous person. It was just some, like, some, um, you know, somebody had some followers, but not a lot of, a lot of followers. And I. Why is this being quoted in every single story? Because it's not from the, you know, the person who was actually in the story or themselves. And it turned out that, uh, what had happened was, uh, you know, somebody wrote in the street, it had gone viral, um, it started trending on Twitter, um, and a bunch of people saw it.They started writing news stories about it. And by that afternoon it was now, you know, gone from a meme to now reality. And like in a lot of people entertainment say, kind of go respond to that. And I've seen this again and again, again, right? Uh, sports, politics, culture, et cetera. So Twitter is memetically upstream of so much of life.Uh, you know, one of my friends had said like, Twitter is more important than the real world. Uh, which I don't, I don't know about that, but, uh, you know, I do think it's, um, it has huge sort of, uh, culture shaping value. Yeah. I thing I think about Twitter is so much of. The network is very Lindy. So one of the things I'm sure from now is like five years from now, you know, what does that mean?Well that, uh, is that something which has kind of stood the test of time to some extent? And, um, and, uh, well the Lindy effect generally means, I don't think it's using this context with ideas like things which, with withstood the test of time tend to also with some test of time in the future, right? Like, like if we talked to Naim is like, well, people have lifting heavy weights and doing red wine for 2000 years, so let's continue doing that.It's probably a good thing. Um, but, but, but that's Twitter today. What is the future of Twitter? Well, uh, well, I think so one is, I think that's gonna continue to be true, right? 10 years from now, five years from now, it's still gonna be the metic battleground. It's still gonna be the place where ideas are shared, et cetera.Um, you know, I'm very. Unabashedly a a big fan of what Elon, uh, as a person, as a founder and what he's doing at Twitter. And my hope is that, you know, he can kind of canoe that and, you know, he's, you know, and I can't actually predict what he's gonna go Bill, he's kind of talked about it. Maybe that means bringing in other product ideas.Uh, I think he's talked about payments. He's talked about like having like longer form video. Uh, who knows, right? But I do know, like five years from now, it is still gonna be the place of like active conversation where people fight, yell, discuss, and maybe sometimes altogether. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the Twitter, [00:30:58] Is Big Tech Overstaffed?[00:30:58] Dwarkesh: um, conversation has raised a lot of, a lot of questions about how over or understaffed, uh, these big tech companies are, and in particular, um, how many people you can get rid of and the thing basically functions or how fragile are these code bases?And having worked at many of these big tech companies, how, how big is the bus factor, would you guess? Like what, what percentage of people could I fire at the random big tech [00:31:22] Sriram: company? Why? I think, uh, [00:31:23] Aarthi: yeah, I think. That's one way to look at it. I think the way I see it is there are a few factors that go into this, right?Like pre covid, post covid, like through covid everybody became remote, remote teams. As you scaled, it was kind of also hard to figure out what was really going on in different parts of the organization. And I think a lot of inefficiencies were overcome by just hiring more people. It's like, oh, you know what, like that team, yeah, that project's like lagging, let's just like add 10 more people.And that's kind of like it became the norm. Yeah. And I think a lot of these teams just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I think the other part of it was also, um, you lot of how performance ratings and culture of like, moving ahead in your career path. And a lot of these companies were dependent on how big your team was and uh, and so every six months or year long cycle or whatever is your performance review cycle, people would be like, this person instead of looking at what has this person shipped or what has like the impact that this person's got had, uh, the team's done.It became more of like, well this person's got a hundred percent arc or 200% arc and next year they're gonna have a 10% increase and that's gonna be like this much. And you know, that was the conversation. And so a lot of the success and promo cycles and all of those conversations were tied around like number of headcount that this person would get under them as such, which I think is like a terrible way to think about how you're moving up the ladder.Um, you should really, like, even at a big company, you should really be thinking about the impact that you've had and customers you've reached and all of that stuff. And I think at some point people kind of like lost that, uh, and pick the more simpler metric, which just headcount and it's easy. Yeah. And to just scale that kind of thing.So I think now with Elon doing this where he is like cutting costs, and I think Elon's doing this for different set of reasons. You know, Twitter's been losing money and I think it's like driving efficiency. Like this is like no different. Anybody else who like comes in, takes over a business and looks at it and says, wait, we are losing money every day.We have to do something about this. Like, it's not about like, you know, cutting fat for the sake of it or anything. It's like this, this business is not gonna be viable if we keep it going the way it is. Yeah. And just pure economics. And so when he came in and did that, I'm now seeing this, and I'm sure Sheam is too at like at eight 16 Z and like his companies, uh, but even outside, and I see this with like my angel investment portfolio of companies, um, and just founders I talk to where people are like, wait, Elon can do that with Twitter.I really need to do that with my company. And it's given them the permission to be more aggressive and to kind of get back into the basics of why are we building what we are building? These are our customers, this is our revenue. Why do we have these many employees? What do they all do? And not from a place of like being cynical, but from a place of.I want people to be efficient in doing what they do and how do we [00:34:06] Sriram: make that happen? Yeah. I, I stole this, I think somebody said this on Twitter and I officially, he said, Elon has shifted the overturn window of, uh, the playbook for running a company. Um, which is, I think if you look at Twitter, uh, you know, and by the way, I would say, you know, you know the sort of, the warning that shows up, which is don't try this at home before, which is like, so don't try some of these unless you're er and maybe try your own version of these.But, you know, number one is the idea that you, you can become better not through growth, but by cutting things. You can become better, by demanding more out of yourself and the people who work for you. Uh, you, you can become better by hiring a, you know, a higher bar, sitting a higher bar for the talent that you bring into the company and, uh, that you reach into the company.I think at the heart of it, by the way, uh, you know, it's one of the things I've kinda observed from Elon. His relentless focus on substance, which is every condition is gonna be like, you know, the, the meme about what have you gotten done this week is, it kinda makes sense to everything else, which is like, okay, what are we building?What is the thing? Who's the actual person doing the work? As opposed to the some manager two levels a about aggregating, you know, the reports and then telling you what's being done. There is a relentless focus on substance. And my theory is, by the way, I think maybe some of it comes from Iran's background in, uh, space and Tesla, where at the end of the day, you are bound by the physics of the real world, right?If you get something wrong, right, you can, the rockets won't take off or won't land. That'd be a kalo, right? Like what, what's a, the phrase that they use, uh, rapid unplanned disassembly is the word. Right? Which is like better than saying it went kaboom. Uh, but, you know, so the constraints are if, if, you know, if you get something wrong at a social media company, people can tell if you get something really wrong at space with the Tesla.People can tap, right? Like very dramatically so and so, and I think, so there was a relentless focus on substance, right? Uh, being correct, um, you know, what is actually being done. And I think that's external Twitter too. And I think a lot of other founders I've talked to, uh, uh, in, sometimes in private, I look at this and go, oh, there is no different playbook that they have always I instituted or they were used to when they were growing up.We saw this when we were growing up. They're definitely seen some other cultures around the world where we can now actually do this because we've seen somebody else do this. And they don't have to do the exact same thing, you know, Elon is doing. Uh, they don't have to, uh, but they can do their variations of demanding more of themselves, demanding more of the people that work for them.Um, focusing on substance, focusing on speed. Uh, I think our all core element. [00:36:24] Aarthi: I also think over the last few years, uh, this may be controversial, I don't know why it is, but it somehow is that you can no longer talk about hard work as like a recipe for success. And you know, like growing up for us. When people say that, or like our parents say that, we just like kind of roll our eyes and be like, yeah, sure.Like, we work hard, like we get it. Yeah. But I think over the last couple of years, it just became not cool to say that if you work hard, then you can, there is a shot at like finding success. And I think it's kind of refreshing almost, uh, to have Elon come in and say, we are gonna work really hard. We are gonna be really hardcore about how we build things.And it's, it's very simple. Like you have to put in the hours. There is no kind of shortcut to it. And I think it's, it's nice to bring it all tight, all back to the basics. And, uh, I like that, like, I like the fact that we are now talking about it again and it's, it's sad that now talking about working really hard or having beds in your office, we used to do that at MicrosoftYeah. Uh, is now like suddenly really controversial. And so, um, I'm, I'm all for this. Like, you know, it's not for everyone, but if you are that type of person who really enjoys working hard, really enjoys shipping things and building really good things, Then I think you might find a fit in this culture. And I think that's a good thing.Yeah. I, [00:37:39] Sriram: I think there's nothing remarkable that has been built without people just working really hard. It doesn't happen for years and years, but I think for strong, some short-term burst of some really passionate, motivated, smart people working some really, you know, and hard doesn't mean time. It can mean so many different dimensions, but I don't think anything great gets built without that.So, uh, yeah, it's interesting. We [00:37:59] Aarthi: used to like do overnights at Microsoft. Like we'd just like sleep under our desk, um, until the janitor would just like, poke us out of there like, I really need to vacuum your cubicle. Like, get out of here. And so we would just like find another bed or something and just like, go crash on some couch.But it was, those were like some of our fun days, like, and we look back at it and you're like, we sh we built a lot. I think at some point sh I think when I walked over to his cubicle, he was like looking at Windows Source code and we're like, we are looking at Windows source code. This is the best thing ever.I think, I think there's such joy in like, Finding those moments where you like work hard and you're feeling really good about it. [00:38:36] Sriram: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so you [00:38:37] Next CEO of Twitter?[00:38:37] Dwarkesh: get working hard and bringing talent into the company, uh, let's say Elon and says Tomorrow, you know what, uh, Riam, I'm, uh, I've got these other three companies that I've gotta run and I need some help running this company.And he says, Sriram would you be down to be the next, [00:38:51] Sriram: uh, next CEO of Twitter Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I am married to someone. No, uh uh, no, uh uh, you know, you know when, uh, I don't think I was, the answer is absolutely not. And you know this exactly. Fun story. Um, uh, I don't think it says in public before. So when you, when I was in the process, you know, talking to and nor words and, you know, it's, it's not like a, uh, it's not like a very linear process.It's kind of a relationship that kind of develops over time. And I met Mark Andreen, uh, multiple times over the years. They've been having this discussion of like, Hey, do you want to come do venture or do you want to, if you wanna do venture, do you wanna come do with us? And um, and, and one of the things Mark would always tell me is, uh, something like, we would love to have you, but you have to scratch the edge of being an operator first.Um, because there are a lot of, there are a lot of ways VCs fail, uh, operator at VCs fail. Um, and I can get, get into some of them if you're interested, but one of the common ways that they fail is they're like, oh, I really want to go back to, um, building companies. And, uh, and now thing is like antis more than most interest, like really respects entrepreneurship, fraud's the hard of what we do.But he will, like, you have to get that out of a system. You have to be like, okay, I'm done with that word. I want to now do this. Uh, before you know, uh, you want to come over, right? And if you say so, let's have this conversation, but if not, we will wait for you. Right. And a woman telling me this all the time, and at some point of time I decided, uh, that, uh, you know, I just love this modoc.Um, you know, there are many things kind of different about being an operator versus a BC uh, and you kind of actually kind of really train myself in what is actually a new profession. But one of the things is like, you know, you kind of have to be more of a coach and more open to like, working with very different kinds of people without having direct agency.And it's always a very different mode of operation, right? And you have to be like, well, I'm not the person doing the thing. I'm not the person getting the glory. I'm here to fund, obviously, but really help support coach be, uh, a lending hand, be a supporting shoulder, whatever the, uh, the metaphor is, or for somebody else doing the thing.And so you kind of have to have the shift in your brain. And I think sometimes when VCs don't work out, the few operator on VCs don't work out. There are few reasons. Uh, number one reason I would say is when an operator, and I, I hate the word operator by the way, right? It just means you have a regular job.Uh, you know, uh, and, uh, but the number one reason is like when you have a regular job, you know, you're an engineer, you're, you're a product manager, you're a marketer, whatever. , you get feedback every single day about how you're doing. If you're an engineer, you're checking in code or you know your manager, you hire a great person, whatever it is.When you're at Visa, you're not getting direct feedback, right? You know, maybe today what I'm doing now, recording this with you is the best thing ever because some amazing fund is gonna meet it and they're gonna come talk to me, or maybe it's a total waste of time and I should be talking some else. You do have no way of knowing.So you really have to think very differently about how you think about patients, how we think about spending your time, and you don't get the dopamine of like, oh, I'm getting this great reinforcement loop. Um, the second part of it is because of that lack of feedback loop, you often don't know how well you're doing.Also, you don't have that fantastic product demo or you're like, you know, if an engineer like, oh, I got this thing working, the builder is working, it's 10 x faster, or this thing actually works, whatever the thing is, you don't get that feedback loop, uh, because that next great company that, you know, the next Larry and Sergey or Brian Armstrong might walk in through your door or Zoom meeting tomorrow or maybe two years from now.So you don't really have a way to know. Um, so you kind of have to be, you have a focus on different ways to do, uh, get. Kind of figured out how well you're doing. The third part of it is, uh, you know, the, uh, the feedback loops are so long where, uh, you know, you, you can't test it. When I was a product manager, you would ship things, something you, if you don't like it, you kill it, you ship something else.At, at our firm in, you invest in somebody, you're working with them for a decade, if not longer, really for life in some ways. So you are making much more intense, but much less frequent decisions as opposed to when you're in a regular job, you're making very frequent, very common decisions, uh, every single day.So, uh, I get a lot of differences and I think, you know, sometimes, uh, you know, folks who, who are like a former CEO or former like VP product, uh, uh, I talk a lot of them sometimes who went from, came to BC and then went back and they either couldn't adapt or didn't like it, or didn't like the emotions of it.And I had to really convince myself that okay. Hopefully wouldn't fate those problems. I probably, maybe some other problems. And, uh, uh, so yes, the long way of saying no, , [00:43:13] Why Don't More Venture Capitalists Become Founders?[00:43:13] Dwarkesh: um, the desk partly answer another question I had, which was, you know, there is obviously this pipeline of people who are founders who become venture capitalists.And it's interesting to me. I would think that the other end or the converse of that would be just as common because if you're, if you're an angel investor or venture capitalist, you've seen all these companies, you've seen dozens of companies go through all these challenges and then you'd be like, oh, I, I understand.[00:43:36] Sriram: Wait, why do you think more VCs driven apart? You have some strong opinions of this . [00:43:40] Dwarkesh: Should more venture capitalists and investors become founders? I think [00:43:43] Aarthi: they should. I don't think they will. Ouch. I dunno, why not? Um, I think, uh, look, I think the world is better with more founders. More people should start companies, more people should be building things.I fundamentally think that's what needs to happen. Like our single biggest need is like, we just don't have enough founders. And we should just all be trying new things, building new projects, all of that. Um, I think for venture capital is, I think what happens, and this is just my take, I don't know if Farram agrees with it, but, um, I think they see so much from different companies.And if you're like really successful with what you do as a vc, you are probably seeing hundreds of companies operate. You're seeing how the sausage is being made in each one of them. Like an operating job. You kind of sort of like have this linear learning experience. You go from one job to the other.Here you kind of sort of see in parallel, like you're probably on like 50, 60 boards. Uh, and oftentimes when it comes to the investor as like an issue, it is usually a bad problem. Um, and you kind of see like you, you know, you kind of see how every company, what the challenges are, and every company probably has like, you know, the best companies we know, I've all had this like near death experience and they've come out of that.That's how the best founders are made. Um, you see all of that and I think at some point you kind of have this fear of like, I don't know. I just don't think I wanna like, bet everything into this one startup. One thing, I think it's very hard to have focus if you've honed your skillset to be much more breath first and go look at like a portfolio of companies being helpful to every one of them.And I see Sure. And do this every day where I, I have no idea how he does it, but key context, which is every 30 minutes. Yeah. And it's crazy. Like I would go completely and say, where if you told me board meeting this founder pitch, oh, sell this operating role for this portfolio company. Second board meeting, third, board meeting founder, pitch founder pitch founder pitch.And that's like, you know, all day, every day nonstop. Um, that's just like, you, you, I don't think you can like, kind of turn your mindset into being like, I'm gonna clear up my calendar and I'm just gonna like work on this one thing. Yeah. And it may be successful, it may not be, but I'm gonna give it my best shot.It's a very, very different psychology. I don't know. What do you [00:45:57] Sriram: think? Well, Well, one of my partners Triess to say like, I don't know what VCs do all day. The job is so easy, uh, uh, you know, they should start complaining. I mean, being a founder is really hard. Um, and I think, you know, there's a part of it where the VCs are like, oh, wait, I see how hard it is.And I'm like, I'm happy to support, but I don't know whether I can go through with it. So, because it's just really hard and which is kind of like why we have like, so much, uh, sort of respect and empathy, uh, for the whole thing, which is, I, [00:46:20] Aarthi: I do like a lot of VCs, the best VCs I know are people who've been operators in the past because they have a lot of empathy for what it takes to go operate.Um, and I've generally connected better with them because you're like, oh, okay, you're a builder. You've built these things, so, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. Um, but I do think a lot more VCs should become [00:46:38] Sriram: founders than, yeah. I, I think it's some of the couple of other things which happened, which is, uh, uh, like Arthur said, like sometimes, uh, you know, when we see you kind of, you see, you kind of start to pattern match, like on.And you sometimes you analyze and, and you kind of, your brain kind of becomes so focused on context switching. And I think when need a founder, you need to kind of just dedicate, you know, everything to just one idea. And it, it's not just bbc sometimes with academics also, where sometimes you are like a person who's supporting multiple different kinds of disciplines and context switching between like various speech students you support.Uh, but it's very different from being in the lab and working on one problem for like long, long years. Right. So, um, and I think it's kind of hard to then context switch back into just doing the exact, you know, just focus on one problem, one mission, day in and day out. So I think that's hard, uh, and uh, but you should be a founder.Yeah, I think, yeah, I think more people should try. [00:47:32] Role of Boards[00:47:32] Dwarkesh: . Speaking of being on boards, uh, what the FTX Saga has raised some questions about what is like the role of a board, even in a startup, uh, stage company, and you guys are on multiple boards, so I'm curious how you think about, there's a range of between micromanaging everything the CEO does to just rubber stamping everything the CEO does.Where, what is the responsibility of a board and a startup? [00:47:54] Aarthi: What, what, what are the, this is something I'm really curious about too. I'm [00:47:57] Sriram: just, well, I just wanna know on the FDX soccer, whether we are gonna beat the FTX episode in interviews in terms of view your podcast, right? Like, so if you folks are listening, right?Like let's get us to number one. So what you YouTube like can subscriber, they're already listening. [00:48:10] Aarthi: What do you mean? Get us [00:48:10] Sriram: to number one? Okay, then, then spread the word, right? Like, uh, don't [00:48:13] Aarthi: watch other episodes. It's kinda what you [00:48:15] Sriram: should, I mean, if there's [00:48:16] Dwarkesh: like some sort of scandal with a 16 Z, we could definitely be to fdx.[00:48:21] Sriram: Uh, uh, yeah, I think it's gonna, well, it's gonna be really hard to read that one. Uh, , uh, uh, for for sure. Uh, uh, oh my goodness. Um, uh, but no, [00:48:29] Aarthi: I'm, I'm genuinely curious about [00:48:31] Sriram: these two. Well, uh, it's a few things, you know, so the multiple schools of thought, I would say, you know, there's one school of thought, which is the, uh, uh, you know, which I don't think I totally subscribe to, but I think some of the other later stages, especially public market folks that I work with sometimes subscribe to, which is the only job of a, uh, board is to hire and fire the ceo.I don't think I really subscribe to that. I think because we deal with more, uh, early stage venture, um, and our job is like, uh, you know, like lot of the companies I work with are in a cdc c, b, you know, they have something working, but they have a lot long way to go. Um, and hopefully this journey, which goes on for many, many years, and I think the best way I thought about it is to, people would say like, you want to be.Wave form dampener, which is, uh, you know, for example, if the company's kind of like soaring, you want to kind of be like kind the check and balance of what? Like, hey, okay, what do we do to, uh, you know, um, uh, to make sure we are covering our bases or dotting the is dotting the, crossing The ts be very kind of like careful about it because the natural gravitational pool of the company is gonna take it like one direct.On the other hand, uh, if the company's not doing very well and everybody's beating us, beating up about it, you're, you know, your cust you're not able to close deals. The press is beating you up. You want to be the person who is supportive to the ceo, who's rallying, everybody helping, you know, convince management to stay, helping convince, close host, hire.So, um, there are a lot of things, other things that go into being a board member. Obviously there's a fiscal responsibility part of things, and, um, you know, um, because you kind of represent so many stakeholders. But I think at the heart of it, I kind of think about, uh, you know, how do I sort of help the founder, uh, the founder and kind of dampen the waveform.Um, the other Pinteresting part was actually the board meetings. Uh, Themselves do. Uh, and I do think like, you know, about once a year or, uh, so like that there's every kind of, there's, there's almost always a point every 18 months or so in a company's lifetime where you have like some very decisive, interesting moment, right?It could be good, it could be bad. And I think those moments can be, uh, really, really pivotal. So I think there's, there's huge value in showing up to board meetings, being really prepared, uh, uh, where you've done your homework, you, you know, you've kind of had all the conversations maybe beforehand. Um, and you're coming into add real value, like nothing kind of annoying me if somebody's just kind of showing up and, you know, they're kind of maybe cheering on the founder once or twice and they kind of go away.So I don't think you can make big difference, but, uh, you know, I think about, okay, how are we sort of like the waveform, the, you know, make sure the company, [00:50:58] Aarthi: but I guess the question then is like, should startups have better corporate governance compared to where we are today? Would that have avoided, like, say the FTX [00:51:08] Sriram: saga?No, I mean, it's, I mean, we, I guess there'll be a legal process and you'll find out right when the FTX case, nobody really knows, you know, like, I mean, like what level of, uh, who knew what, when, and what level of deceptions, you know, deception, uh, uh, you know, unfolded, right? So, uh, it, yeah. Maybe, but you know, it could have been, uh, it could have been very possible that, you know, uh, somebody, somebody just fakes or lies stuff, uh, lies to you in multiple ways.[00:51:36] Aarthi: To,

Does it seem like "everybody and their cousin" is on social media these days? If you've silently said to yourself, "It's just a fad that will die out soon," you may be surprised to learn that social media isn't exiting the stage anytime soon. It's center stage, baby! And will remain an integral part of our lives.Its presence is felt in our political system and has launched (and killed) more careers than Show Time At The Apollo.Simply put, Social media is the most significant invention of the 21st century, and you and I are here to witness the revolution. But don't be fooled; even though its origins, as we know them today, are a little over a decade, this media will continue to evolve.Depending on how you feel, the evolution of social media is music to your ears or a call to action.On the podcast, I'm examining The origins of social mediaIts impact on societyAnd the future of media. Joining me is one of the most influential social media strategists and consultants, Natasha Samuel. She is the founder of Shine With Natasha, better known by her Instagram handle @ShinewithNatasha.Natasha and I discuss the good, the so-so, and the downright ugly of social media. To round out the discussion, Natasha shares ways to make social media work for us and tips for staying one step ahead of the algorithms.Put down that stuffy, boring textbook, grab your earbuds, and get into the most lit history lesson EVER! And don't forget to rate and subscribe!Stay in Touch:Visit our website. Follow the podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and  feel free to donate.To learn more about the podcast host Toya, visit ToyaFromHarlem.com. Connect with Toya on Instagram, Twitter, or buy her a coffee.Learn more about Natasha on her  website,    Instagram, Podcast, TikTokEpisode Highlights[00:13:09] The History Of Social Media from Morse Code to Yahoo Messenger. Learn about the first social media platforms and how they were used.[00:20:05] From commercials to product lines, and even entire companies, social media is responsible for launching the careers of today's most influential moguls, But is it all good? This episode discusses social media and business pros, cons, and biases.[00:25:53] How has social media changed how we communicate, consume information, and connect with each other? Listen as we discuss our experiences with social media and how it impacts our personal lives and businesses.[00:36:07] Are the demands of keeping up with your various social profiles causing you anxiety? In this episode of "That Wasn't In My Textbook," Natasha and I discuss how to win on social media through play, experimentation, and marching to the beat of your own drum.[00:49:05] Oversharing, vulnerability, and the benefits and drawbacks of social media. We explore it all here.[00:49:32]What makes the power of social media so intoxicating and alluring? Why are we so prone to becoming addicted to social media? In this episode, we explore the psychological aspects of social media and how it is used to shape opinions and beliefs.[01:04:24] If Natasha could write a Chapter in our textbooks, what message would she share with the world? Listen as she reveals the core of her social media philosophy and how it can be used to create a more positive and productive social media experience.About Natasha Samuel: Natasha hosts The Shine Online Podcast and is an Instagram Strategist that helps small businesses shine online. Through intensive strategy days, digital resources, and education, Natasha enables you to build your brand on the 'Gram with a fulfilling and fun strategy without the overwhelm.. Website Link: https://shinewithnatasha.com/Instagram handle: @shinewithnatashaEpisode Research Credit:  @mellehartley | @drommamediaEpisode Sources:1.   https://datacommons.org/place/Earth?utm_medium=explore&mprop=count&popt=Person&hl=en2.   https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.asp3.   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media4.   https://online.maryville.edu/blog/evolution-social-media/5.   https://blog.hootsuite.com/history-social-media/6.   https://dewzilla.com/a-brief-history-of-social-media/7.   https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-sites/8.   https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/months-after-tiktok-apologized-black-creators-many-say-little-has-n12567269.   https://www.amsivedigital.com/insights/performance-creative/how-black-creators-have-reshaped-social-marketing/10.  https://datareportal.com/social-media-users11.  https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

You'll learn how the internet has changed our world, the whole jargon around Web 3.0 and Metaverse and why should normal people like you and I should care about it.   Back in 2004-5, When I was in my school, I used to go to the Cybercafe to chat with strangers on Yahoo! Messenger. I vividly remember the interface and chat rooms where one could strike up conversations with people from across the world.   It was the new way that me and my friend had just discovered to meet people on the internet. We'd ask them about their culture and share ours.   During that time, far away in Silicon Valley, Shaukat Shamim was leading the team that developed the iconic Yahoo! Messenger. And on today's episode, it is such a pleasure on having Shaukat on the Inspiring Talk podcast.   Shaukat is a successful serial entrepreneur and technologist with a long track record of driving breakthrough tech innovations. He is someone who's seen the internet from the very beginning and its evolution.   We now have a telegram community for our listeners. Join here- https://theinspiringtalk.com/telegram   For brand collaborations and opportunities, send us an email at  hi@wyn.studio   Read full episode notes at https://theinspiringtalk.com/shaukat-shamim   Send me a voice message: https://theinspiringtalk.com/speak     Follow the Inspiring Talk on Facebook http://theinspiringtalk.com/facebook   Twitter http://theinspiringtalk.com/twitter Instagram http://theinspiringtalk.com/instagram

On this special 3 part series, you get to hear Russell's presentation at the ROR (Return on Relationships) Symposium! Russell discusses the importance of what he calls the “Dream 100”, and how it helps create relationships that support both his business and his personal life. Check out RORUniversity.com to learn more! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: Hey. What's going on, everybody? This is Russell Brunson. Want to welcome you back to The Marking Secrets podcast. I got something special for you guys over the next three episodes. I'm actually on vacation right now, Thanksgiving vacation. My wife and my kids and I are all in Kauai, Hawaii. You might hear them giggling in the background depending on how well this microphone picks up noise. And so, I didn't have a chance to record a podcast for the next couple episodes, but before I left on vacation, I actually had a chance to be part of a really cool summit that my friend, Christopher Voss put on called The ROR Symposium. And he had me as one of his keynote speakers, and he had me talk about just my history, my journey, using relationships, and joint ventures, and things like that. The Dream 100, as I call it, to build my business and everything we've done over the last almost 20 years now. And so, it was a really special presentation. It was one that I came to with notes, but not PowerPoint slides and things like that. It was more, I just wanted to kind of share from my heart. And if you know Christopher Voss you know he's a very emotional person and he brings that emotion. And apparently, I found out afterwards, all the speakers end up crying. In fact, I did as well during my presentation. So, there's something really special in the middle that you'll find out about. But anyway, I hope you really enjoy these. They're going to help you to learn how to build joint ventures, how to find your Dream 100, how to build better relationships with people, and how to turn that into more business and help you to get your mission out there to change more people's lives. If you don't know who Christopher Voss is, I recommend following him. He told me that the best site to send you guys to... I said, "Where should I send people to listen who want to go deeper with you and learn more about relationships and how to build businesses using them?" And he said theroruniversity.com would be the best place for you guys to go. So, if you want to go deeper with Chris, go to roruniversity.com, check out what he's got there. And with that said, I'm going to cue the theme song. When we come back, you have a chance to hear the first part of my keynote presentation. As I was kind of thinking through this, I was like, "Man, there's 30-something speakers coming. Everyone's talking about different ways to do this ROR, return on relationship game. And everyone's got different ideas and things, and it got me to back, man, almost 19, 20 years ago now. And so I... If you guys are cool with it, I just want to do some story time and tell you guys my story and some of the things along the journey that I tried, that I... failures, the successes, specifically inside of this relationship, and joint venture partners, and things like that. And hopefully, it'll give you guys some comfort. Because everyone starting different points and sometimes you look at someone like me like, "Oh, well, Russell knows Tony Robbins, and Dan Kennedy," and da, da, da. But there was a day, 18, 19, 20 years ago where I was a little kid scared out of my mind awkwardly trying to message people pre-Facebook. So, I'm sending emails and trying to... and it was scary, and hard, and so hopefully, it'll give you some faith in wherever you are in your journey. Just like, "Okay, this is right. It's going to be good." It's going to be for some of us, especially the introverts like me, this is going to be something that kind of stretches you and feels uncomfortable sometimes, but then it can become something you really love and enjoy and gives you the ability to change the world at a level you never thought was possible. So, that's kind of my game plan. Then after that, we can open for some Q&A and... or whatever we want to do. Or we can celebrate, have a party, or we can sing Christopher's song and let him have a nap. Hey, whatever we want to do, it'll be fun. So, looking back, it's funny, because when I got started in this business, I was still in college. So, I had just met my beautiful wife, Colette, who I think we're celebrating our... I think it's our 20th anniversary this summer, which is crazy. So, she's stuck around my chaos for this long and she's... Gosh, she's the best. But we had just gotten married and I was trying to figure out how to support her. I was wrestling and I didn't want to quit wrestling, so I'm like, "How do I wrestle and do all these things at once?" And so, I did what most people do and I went to Google and typed in how to make money. Right? Which, who here has done that at one point in your career? And you go on this rabbit trail, right? Of like, "Whoa, there's a lot of things to do." And everyone's got a different thing, and you start joining email newsletters. You know what those are at first and you start getting these emails from all these people, and then for me, it was like I was reading blogs and then I was joining... They didn't have Facebook groups back then. They had forums. So, I was joining the Warrior forum and How-To Court forum, and then... Anyway, there's like 20 or 30 different forums. So, all day long I'm reading forums of people, and I'm getting emails, and I'm learning all these things. And it was interesting because I was learning all the different pieces, right? Some people would talk about SEO and that's what they geeked out on. So, I started reading all the SEO articles, and I started learning how to do SEO and backlinking. So, I was like, "Oh, this is how you make money." And then someone else was like, "SEO's stupid. This is how we make money," and they had a whole different strategy. And then someone else had a different strategy, and soon I was just looking at all these shiny objects and I was like, "I don't know which one I'm supposed to do." How many of you guys ever felt that before? There's like 8,000 things. Like, "Russell said funnel. Someone else said this." Like, "Ah." And so, I was in that as well, and so I was just like... I got in this perpetual learning phase, right? Where I was learning and studying, and learning and studying. Then I started watching what was happening. Right? And I was on all these different email lists, but then it seemed like it was coordinated. Once every couple months, all of a sudden I would get an email from 30 or 40 people who somehow I had got on their email lists and all of them would be talking about the same product at the exact same time. Right? And all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, my gosh. Everyone's talking about this thing." Right? And I think the first ones I saw there was an old e-book called Google Cash. And it's how people are making money on Google doing Google ads. It was Chris Carpenter's offer, and he had gotten a whole bunch of affiliates. I don't know how at the time, but he had a whole bunch of affiliates all promote at the same time, so my inbox... And I'm at college opening my inbox and there's like 40 emails from people all talking about this book. I'm like, "This is the thing everyone's talking about. It's got to be the secret." I was so excited. And I went and paid this $67 for an e-book, which no one knew what e-books were back then and we were all confused. Literally, I remember messaging the support team and I was... like two weeks later. I'm like, "When's the book going to show up?" And they're like, "It's digital." I'm like, "I don't know what that means." They're like, "It means you download it." And again, 20 years ago, that was like... that was weird. That wasn't a thing that nowadays we all get it. But back then... And so I download this book, and I'm trying to read it, and I was just like, "I paid $67 for a PDF. My wife's going to kill me when she finds out." But I'm reading it and I'm getting all excited like t's next big thing, and all of a sudden, there's this next promotion and everybody's talking about this next thing. I'm getting all these... like 20, 30 emails. And I was like, "It's got to be this," so I jumped over there, and it's started me on this rabbit trail. And I just remember being confused, and overwhelmed, and all the things a lot of us go through. Right? And about that time... This was probably the very first ever high-ticket... Not even high-ticket, like $1,00 product. There was this guy, and I didn't know who he was at the time, but again, all of a sudden the emails start flying in my inbox. Right? And they're all for this guy. They say this guy is the godfather of internet marketing and he's retiring. And because of that, he's giving away his entire empire, everything he's built. And he called it the farewell package. Like, "This is my farewell from the internet. I'm done. I'm out. I've made millions of dollars, now I'm leaving." And his name was Mark Joyner. And I didn't know who Mark was at the time, but I started reading the emails and the stuff, and I was just like, "This is the greatest thing in the world." Right? So, I remember going to the sales page, reading through it ready to try to buy it for 20, or 30 bucks, or whatever, and the price went was $1,000. And I was like, "Oh, I do not have $1,000. I've never had $1,000." My wife was working, supporting at the time, and she was making, I believe $9.50 an hour. So, I mean, it would take her, man, over 100 hours. No, because you got taxes. Probably 200 hours of her working, so that's a lot of time to pay for this $1,000 course. I remember looking at it and I was like, "Oh, I don't have any money. I'm a broke wrestler." I had just gotten married, therefore, now I'm living off my wife who's making $9.50 an hour as a receptionist where she was working at. And I was like, "There's no way I can do it." And so, I remember not being able to buy it, not being able to buy it, but I kept seeing the emails, and the promotions, and the urgency, and the scarcity, and it eventually got to the point where it was about to sell out. Probably five or six weeks into this whole thing and about to sell out. And they were closing down the cart. And I remember the night before... This is... Again, for those of you who are newer before there were webinars, there were things called teleseminars where you would pick up the phone, and you would call, and you'd just listen to people talk. And so, I called this teleseminar, and on the teleseminar these guys are talking about the Mark Joyner Farewell Package. And it was just... It was going to be gone the next day and you had to get it. And I remember listening to it and being sick to my stomach and laying in bed that night, and I was like, "I have to do it. This is my thing," and being so stressed out. And finally, the next morning I was still laying in bed. My wife woke up and I was like, "Colette, I know I bought a lot of stupid things that I haven't done anything with any of it yet, but I think this is the one. I think this is the thing." I remember asking her. I was like, "Can I buy it?" And she said something like... In fact, I talked about it. I wrote it in the Traffic Secrets book, this story, but she's like, "Well, do you think this is the one for you?" I was like, "I think this is the one." She's like, "Okay, then here's our credit card." And we only had like a $500 credit limit I had to call up my bank like, "Can you double our limit to 1,000?" This is how like green we were back then. And we did it, and I bought the course, and I remember I got the course and there was like 15 CDs, all these interviews. And so, I started listening to the CDs, and what was crazy, as Mark was talking, he kept talking over and over and over again, about two concepts. The first one was the power of your own list. He kept talking about, "You have to have your own email list, and this is how it works, and if you have an email list of 10,000 people, you send an email out to your offer, you can sell a whole bunch of your things." And I started realize, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. This is literally what's been happening to me. I'm on all these people's email lists. They have a big email list and send an email, and if I buy a $1,000 course, they must have made 500 bucks." And I started putting the pieces together. It's like, "Oh, my gosh. This is how it works." And some of you guys... I'm not going to tell the whole story, but some of you guys have heard my story. After listening to two or three of these CDs I was like, "I need an email list." And I went down that whole journey where I got called a spammer and... Anyway, so that's... Insert that story there. I'm not going to tell that story because it's outside the context of this event. But I started trying to send email and it didn't work. And I was just like, "This thing Mark is teaching me, I need to have an email list, but everyone's got one, except for me. I don't have a list. It's not fair." And I kept listening to Mark's course, and as he got deeper and deeper in the course, he started talking about this thing called joint ventures. And he was like, "Every time you start a new company or launch a new product, the first thing we do before you buy ads or anything is we go and we have these different partners who all already have email lists." He's like, "Go with people who already have email lists, and then some of them will promote and send traffic to my thing, and that's how you make money." And I was like... I was just seeing... You know there's those curtain in front of your face, and the curtain's lifted? I saw the Wizard of Oz. I'm like, "This is how it works. You have to have an email list. If you don't have an email list, you find other people with email lists, and they promote your offer, and then the people buy your product, and then you have an email list." And I was like... It all started making sense in my head. I was like, "Okay." And then I did what I'm sure all of you guys did, especially if you've read Traffic Secrets book... And I didn't know what this was called at the time. I didn't have words for it, but it was basically my first Dream 100. I was like, "Okay. Who's got an email list?" Like, "Mark said people have email lists. We need to find people with email lists," and so that was kind of the next question. And so, I started making my first Dream 100 list. And it was funny because I had this farewell package I bought from Mark Joyner and he had all the people he interviewed. So I said, "Well, this is my Dream 100, all the people Mark interviewed." And so, I don't remember most of the names. I do remember Joe Vitale though. He was one of the names. And some of you guys know Joe Vitale. If you go to mrfire.com, he's written like 400 books. He's awesome. I wrote Joe Vitale down. I started writing other people's names down. And so, I remember I'm building this Dream 100 list and I was like, "Okay, this is easy. I'm just going to email them all, and then they're going to promote my thing, and I'm going to be rich. This seems really awesome." Right? And I'm sure some of you guys have thought of that before. Hopefully, it's not just me. So, I start emailing Joe Vitale, and I can't remember all the other names. Joe's the one that stuck out in my head. I remember emailing them all and then just waiting like, "Okay, they're going to respond back to me, and then this is going to be this big thing, and I'm going to make a bunch of money." And I think I had my first or second product at the time, so it was like I had a product for them to sell and everything. Sent all the emails out and it was crickets. Not one person wrote back to me. And I was like, "Huh." I was like, "Okay, either this Mark Joyner's full of crap or I need to send another email." So, being a relentless person, I send another email to all them like, "Hey, Joe Vitale. Did you not get my email? Because I've got this new product and if you promote it, we can split the money 50/50. It's going to be awesome." Right? Like he's for sure... Like, "I'll even give you 60% commission." Maybe I'll blow his mind. Right? So, I tell him this thing, crickets. Nobody responds back to me. And I remember just being like... I was like, "This internet thing doesn't work." So, I remember being frustrated and just not knowing what to do, not believing this JV thing actually worked. Assuming that it's impossible to build an email list and I was stuck in that rut for a while. Probably, I don't know how many, four or five months of this rut of just like, "It didn't work. I tried." And have you guys done that where you try something somebody told you and then you're like, "Oh"? It reminds me of... Well, never mind. I'm not going to tell that story, but it reminds me of just so many of us do that where we're trying to follow a guru. We try the thing and it doesn't work, and we're like, "Oh, it didn't work." It's like, maybe we just didn't execute it quite correctly. So, fast forward a little while later there was this internet marketing event. It was Armand Morin. It was called the Big Seminar back then. And it was the seminar in the industry. Kind of like Funnel Hacking Live is nowadays. It was the seminar. And so, I remember saving up some money and we flew out to... And I had made a little bit of money online at this point. Not a lot. I was making, I don't know, maybe 1,000 bucks a month or something. So, I had a little bit of money just so I didn't have to yell... borrow more money from Colette's credit card to go and go to this event. So, I fly out to this event. It's in Atlanta. I go to the seminar and I remember thinking, "All the speakers on stage, I'm going to get all... That's going to be my next affiliates or my next people I'm going to be partners with." And so, we're seeing all the speakers and they seem bigger than life. They're on stage, and they're talking, and I was just like, "If any of these guys promoted my product, I'd be rich." That's the thing going through my head. Right? And so, I'm seeing them, writing all their names down. I'm like, "I'm going to become partners with them and become friends with them. I'm going to go meet them face-to-face. Maybe that's the secret. If I meet them face-to-face then it'll be easy." Unfortunately, I'm insanely introverted, and shy, and scared. So, I'm at the event, I see the person walking by. I remember seeing Stephen Pierce. He was the guy at the time. He walked past and I was just like... He walked right past me, and he walked past, and I'm like, "Ah, I blew it. Stupid, Russell. Stupid, Russell. You didn't even talk to him." And I'm sitting there in the hallway and all of a sudden Armand... Actually, I was in the bathroom and Armand walked next to me in the urinal next to me. I'm like, "Armand's right here. What do I do? Do I say something? I can't say in the bathroom. It's so awkward." And he looks over and he is like, "Hey, man. How's it going?" I'm like, "Good." And he is like, "All right," and then walks away and walks out of the bathroom. I'm like, "Ah, I blew it again. I blew it again." You know? And I'm too scared to talk to any of the speakers, but I'm like... For me, I'm like, "This is the key. This is the key to my freedom is these speakers," and I didn't dare do it. I wimped out every single person. I didn't talk to a single one of them. And then at nights, all the attendees would go to the bar. Now, I'm not a drinker. I've never drank in my life. Most people don't believe me, but I've literally never drank in my entire life. So, I'd go to these bars and I was like, "I don't want people to think I'm drinking," because like I have a thing like that where I want to avoid the appearance of evil at all costs. Right? So, I remember I'd go to the bar and I was like, "Ah, how do I..." And literally, the bartender was like, "You want something to drink?" I was like, "Can you give me milk?" He was like, "Seriously?" I'm like, "I don't know. Can you?" I was like "Because if it's going to be a Sprite, people going to think it's some fizzy drink." I don't know. I don't even know what drinks are. Like, "It's going to be fizzy something." So, I'm like, "If you give me milk they're going to know that it's not alcohol." Right? So, he's like, "All right." So, the guy gives me a milk. I'm holding this milk at the bar walking around and everyone's like... All these people start coming to me, which is really cool, and they're like, "Are you drinking milk?" I was like, "Yeah." They're like, "Why are drinking milk?" I'm like, "Oh, well, I'm Mormon, so I don't drink." They all kind of laugh at me, but it opened dialogue when they came to me. And this is... Okay, side note. Interesting for the introvert. Who are the introverts in the room? If you're introvert, I learned something really cool. Nicholas Bailey actually told me this. He dresses weird because he's introverted and he's too scared to go talk to people. He's like, "If I do something weird," he's like, "people come to me and like, 'Oh, nice shirt. Nice glasses. Nice,'" blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, that's what happens. I had this weird thing, and then people came to me. They're like, "Why are you drinking milk in a bar?" And then it started a conversation, and then when I'm in a conversation I can do it. It's the walking up to. Like, "How am I going to go and..." You know what I mean? So scary for me. And so, people started talking to me. We started becoming friends and get to know people, and I'm talking in this group, and it was interesting because everyone I was talking to, they all had businesses just like me, but they weren't the guy on stage with a list of 100,000 people and all this kind of stuff They were here and they had a list of like 500 people. Or I got a list of 1,200 people. They were all kind of at this level. About the same level I was at. I was like, "Oh, my gosh," and we started talking, getting to know each other. And back then it was before Skype or before... It was pre-Skype. It was pre... What do we use nowadays? Slack or Instant Messenger. Whatever. We used to use Yahoo Messenger, or IRQ, or AOL, and so it always like, "What messenger are you on? Here's my AOL chat," or, "Here's my IRQ." Or ICQ Sorry. ICQ. Or, "Here's my..." And so, they give them to you, and so that was how we get to know people. So, I put it out, write it down, and then I remember the people. I remember Mike Phillip's name was on Yahoo Messenger. His name was signanddrive.com. And I remember Brad Callen. I remember Brad Fallon. And so, I started meeting all these people at the bar while I'm drinking my milk, and getting to know them, and I'm writing down all their little handles. And then we get home and away from the event, and so I start putting those things in and I start messaging them. I feel way more comfortable talking through text, through Yahoo Messenger. I was like, "Hey, great meeting you at the event," blah, blah, blah. "This is a picture of me so you remember who I was." Right? And the person would write back, "Oh, yeah. It was really cool. You were the guy with the milk, right?" I'm like, "Yeah." And we'd start this dialogue. And then I was like, "Okay..." Not even thinking that these guys would be big partners someday, but I kind of started getting to know these people. And we were all kind of the same level. And this is the key. Okay? I'm trying to tell stories with hopefully principles you guys can pick from it. So, all these people were at the same level. And I remember because at the same time I was messaging Joe, Vitale, and messaging all the speakers in the event, and none of them are responding to me. It's just like crickets. No one's responding back. I'm talking to these guys. And I remember I was creating an offer and these guys had become my friends. And I was like, "Hey, can you check this out? Do you think this is good? Is the offer good?" And they started messaging back, and all of a sudden they started becoming involved in my business, right? They had a vested interest because they were kind of like, "Oh, I would do this," or, "I'd try this over here. And all of a sudden they started sharing ideas back and forth and it was really cool. And then they would share with me what they were doing back and forth, and it was really, really cool. And I had vested interest in their projects because I was like, "Oh, you should try this, or, "Oh, I did this. You should try this." We built this little group of people. And I don't even know. It was probably four, five, six people maybe that we kind of did this thing. And I remember because about this time is when my very first software product ever came out, and I don't talk much about this product. It was a product called ZIP Brander, and I was so proud of it. And I remember I sent it to Mike Filsaime. I was like, "Hey, here's my first software. Check it out." He was like, "Dude, that's so cool. Do you want me to promote it to my list?" And I was like, "Wait, he just asked me." Like never it happened. I was just like, "I've been asking all these people at this level up here, all the people I'm looking up to, the gurus, the big famous people. No one, crickets, and all of a sudden my friend's, like, 'I'll promote it to my list.'" And I was like, "Dude, you serious?" He's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Okay." And so I give him the link. He sends an email to his list, and I can't remember. I paid him like 50, 60, 70. I don't know. I was like, "You can have all the money. I just want... I need a list. I know the goal. The goal to get a list. I'll give you 100% commission." Right? And so, he promoted and I think he sold... I don't know, he sold five or six copies of my thing, but then I got the money, and then I gave most of it to him. But then what happened is I got five or six customers, but a bunch of people... I had a pop-up on the site. A bunch of people filled out the pop-up, and I got like 300 or 400 people on my email list. And I was like, "This is awesome." And then I knew Mike had a product, and I was like, "Hey, man." I was like, "Dude, I love..." He had a product called Carbon Copy Marketing back then or something. It was a two-disc DVD set. And this is before DVD, so he literally would go and he would print a DVD and ship it out to you from his house. This is how... 20 years ago. Remember, this is before things like that. And so, he said, "Yeah." So, I emailed my list of like 300 people from him the 400 or 500 people I built, so maybe a thousand from my list. I sent the email and I sold like five or six of his DVDs. And he is like, "Thanks, man." And we did our first little cross-promotion, and me and Mike became friends. And then Mike told me. Then Mike's like, "Dude, you know who you should do? I met this guy named Gary Ambrose. You should meet Gary because Gary has got a list too, and he promoted the same DVDs you just promoted and it was awesome. You should get to know him." So, he introduced me to Gary. Me and Gary met up, and I was like, "Oh." And Gary and I started sharing ideas, and then eventually he promoted my things, I promoted his, and then Gary's like, "Oh, dude, you should meet so and so." And I was like, "Oh, you should meet..." And all of a sudden we started this little four or five people start introducing more and more people, and soon I've got 20 or 30 friends all on Yahoo Messenger and AOL that we're talking back and forth and getting to know each other. Right? And what's interesting is that we all kind of helped promoting each other. Our list went from 400 or 500 people to 1,000 to 1,500, to 1,000 to 2,500, and they kept growing and growing. And I was looking at this little group of people all working together. It was like a groundswell where our businesses all started gradually rising together. What do they say? A rising tide raises all ships, right? That's what started happening. And we started getting bigger and bigger. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. This is so cool." And then we started doing more things and this is, man, a two or three-year period of time while I was in college, we were going back and doing these things. And it was just... It was really, really cool. Right? And I remember one day Mike had this idea, Mike Filsaime had this idea for a product called Butterfly Marketing. Some of you guys may have heard of it, but it was the first time he had the idea. And he's like, "Hey, man, check out the sales letter." He had this huge sales letter. And on the sales letter, he had these testimonials from all the people. All the people you'd want, right? I was like, "How'd you get all those guys' testimonials?" He's like, "Oh, I didn't. I just put their pictures in just as the placeholders as a dream of someday I'm wanting to get these people's testimonials." I was like, "Oh, that'd be so cool to get to know them." And then he's like, "Well, I met so and so. I know so and so who does know that person," and all of a sudden this network started happening, right? Anyway, Mike went and started messaging and eventually got to the person, one of the people, and they gave him a thing, and all of a sudden he got a bigger promotion from a bigger person. And what happened is, is we started doing this. Again, the people I looked up to were way up here and they wouldn't respond to me and things like that. And this group down here became friends. We all started growing together, and eventually what started happening is as we got bigger and bigger and bigger, we got closer to these people. I remember probably, man, two years, maybe three years into this business I had an idea. And I was creating this whole project. It was a membership site. It was called The Lost Files, and it was based on old public domain books, which I could talk about for six years. But it's this geeky, nerdy thing that you can make money with. And so I got excited, I'm creating this thing, and I was like, "Joe Vitale, he's written like 500 books." I'm like, "Oh, Joe would be my dream person." I know Joe had talked about public domain in the past. Joe had actually published a couple books from the public domain. And I was like, "He'd be my dream partner." But I was like, "He's ignored like 40 emails from me. There's no way he's going to respond to me now." Right? But I was like, "Oh, I got to do something." So, I remember I messaged him again this time and I was like, "Hey, Joe. Sorry to bug you. I have this new site." I explained what my site, thelostfiles.com. Like, "This is what is, how it works," and everything. And then the next day I get email back from Joe, and I was too scared to even open it. I'm like, "This is crazy." And Joe messaged me back. He's like, "Hey, Russell, so good to meet you." He's like, "I've been seeing your name everywhere. All these different people keep promoting your stuff. They keep popping up in my inbox. The Lost Files sounds awesome." The way he made the connection, he didn't... I don't think he... He didn't connect that it was me who was annoying him for like 40 emails prior. He just didn't connect it. Or maybe he just ignored it, or he forgave me, or whatever, but he message back and said, "Yes." And I was like, "Joe Vitale said yes." And I was freaking out. And so he goes and he does this... We had this promotion where we had a teleseminar together. He promoted his list. And then at the teleseminar he promoted The Lost Files, and we signed up like 300 members off his list at like 40 bucks a month, which for a college kid, is insane. And it was this one deal, and then Joe was like, "Oh, by the way, have you ever met so and so, and so and so?" and starts opening these doors again. Now, because I've gotten closer and closer, I got one person in and all of sudden it opened up this whole network of people. And that was my journey for the first three or four years. And so I wanted to kind of lead with that because again, I think so many of you guys are like me where you see the people. I meet people all the time. "Russell, you say to build a Dream 100 list, I've got to dream one, and it's just you." And I'm like, "Not a good strategy." I literally said Dream 100 for a very important reason because it shouldn't be me. I do maybe one promotion a year and usually, it's for Tony Robbins. And so, for me to say yes, it's going to be like... We got to date for a decade before it's going to happen, so if you're banking on that it's going to be a long, long time for something to happen, right? I was like, "Instead, go and do things with people at your own tier, your own level where they're looking for things, and looking for cross-promotions, and things will start happening. And then what happened is you start rising to the top, and all of a sudden people like me are going to start seeing you. You show up my news feed. I start seeing emails." All of a sudden it's like now there's this relationship, right? It's funny. There's... This is a funny story. So, one of my buddies, I met him probably... It's probably been 12 years ago now. Some of you guys know him. He's Chad Wallner. He's a chiropractor. I talk about him in the Dot Com Secrets book. But he moved into our area, and so we go to church. We were going to the same church, and so he shows up and he sees me. And he was seeing me online. He knew I was and stuff. He came to me and he's like, "Russell." He's like, "Dude, this is so... I can't believe you're in my ward. I've seen you before," blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And he's like, "We actually have a mutual friend together." And I was like, "We do?" He's like, "Yeah." So, he's trying to build a connection so we can connect and stuff. And it was interesting because he said, "We got this mutual friend." And then he told me the name. He's like, "Here's the guy's name." And I was like, "Don't know who he is." He was like, "Oh, weird." He's like, "He talks about you all the time as if you guys were best friends." I was like, "I don't know who that is. I'm so sorry." And years later, Chad and I had this discussion about this and it was funny because he was like, "Man, I..." The realization is it's not who you know, it's who knows you. Right? I knew who Joe Vitale was. I knew who these people... I knew Tony Robbins. So, I wanted them, but it's not that I know them. I need them to know me. Right? So, it's how do you get them to know you? Well, it's by doing cool stuff in the market that they're playing in. Showing up. Will they see you in news feeds, see you in emails, see you in stuff? Where all of a sudden they keep seeing these things and then they see you. They got to know who you are. Right? When you approach them like, "Hey, my name is so and so," if they don't know who you are, it's going to be really hard to build a relationship. If they're like, "Hey, this is so and so," it's easy. For example, I was trying to do a negotiation with someone the other day. I wish I could tell you all the details. I can't though. Anyway, really big company. You'd be aware of who they are. And so, I tried to get a meeting with the founder of it, and we get on a Zoom call like this, and the very first thing he says, he's like, "Man, Russell," he's like, "I see you like 12 times a day. You are everywhere in my news feed. I get emails from you. You must be the best internet marketer on the planet." And I was like, "This is going to be the easiest negotiation in my entire life because he knows exactly who I am." Right? As opposed to me coming to him and trying to explain who I was. Right? And so it's like, as you're doing stuff actively in the marketplace, people will start seeing that and become aware of you. Right? And that's how you start rising to the top. I get people all the time that message me like, "Hey, can I speak at Funnel Hacking Live?" I'm like, "I don't know who you are." Like, "I'm the best speaker. Here's my speaker," blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "I don't know who you are." Right? But check this out. McCall Jones, who I think is on here, or she was on here earlier, right? McCall, she showed up on Funnel Hacking Live. Then she does this thing, and then she starts publishing, and she starts doing everything, and I start seeing her everywhere. I see her energy and her excitement. I see how she's developing things. She's like using things she learned from me, but developing her own things, which was really cool. Because I'm like, "Oh, my gosh. She's a good student and she's doing things." And this whole thing starts happening, and I see her in my feed. I see her all the time. And my friends start talking about her, and then Monica, who's on this as well. Monica messaged me. There's McCall right there. Yeah. What's up? And Monica messaged me, "You know McCall? You got to..." And so, her friends are calling me and telling me to listen and stuff. And soon, I'm watching everything she's doing. And I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm impressed." I start podcasts. How many... Once or twice I talked about you on the podcast before we even met officially. I'm like, "This girl McCall keeps showing up. She's doing these cool things." And on Funnel Hacking Live, I'm like, "Who should speak on Funnel Hacking Live?" I'm like, "There's this girl who's never spoken on stage before. Right? She's never... Doesn't like, 'Here's my speaker reel. I've got a perfect presentation.'" But I'm seeing that. I was like, "She'd be like the perfect person to come on stage and, and speak." And so anyway... Hey, McCall. What's up? McCall Jones: Thank you. Wow, that's so nice. I'm just hyping you up, over here reacting to all of your stuff, so hey. Funnel Hacking Live. Woo hoo! Russell: All right. But conceptually, you guys, it make sense. If you want to get into, they call it the good old boys club. Like, "How do I get in the good old boys club?" It's the way you get into it is you have to infiltrate it. And it starts finding people at your own level and start playing the game, start moving forward, start making noise, start doing stuff, and then people are going to start seeing you and start becoming aware of you.

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” So says Alexander Pope, 18th century poet in his rare poetic essay, ‘An Essay on Criticism: Part 2.' Most essays are written prosaically. Hence, our expectations so disturbed, we might fault Pope for having surprised and confused us. Transferring the embarrassment of surprise from ourselves to him has some advantages. But greater advantages are had from embracing rather than criticizing this work regarding criticism. That really is the point, after all. For every single writer, ten critics wait in the wings. And too often, those critics – joyless in their outlook – rob joy from others even as they criticize for the sake of criticizing. So what if Pope wrote his essay in poetic form? Perhaps that is not a mistake, as Bob Ross would say, merely a happy little accident. And where is it written that persuasive essays have to be prosaic rather than poetic, mathematical rather than artistic? In every man, woman, and child there is both a head and a heart. Some live the life of the mind, while others are carried along by the wind wherever their emotions take them. But if we – as writers and critics – can endeavor to show up as the whole person, both head and heart, in whatever our hand finds to do, as unto the Lord, that is much better than half-heartedness and half-baked ideas. Once upon a time, before my wife Lauren was Lauren Mullet, back when she was Lauren Duff, she had a Yahoo email address. ‘Entiercoeur@Yahoo.com' is where I sent my letters to her when I did not handwrite them. And when I first asked her to be my girl in high school, it was over Yahoo Messenger, and it was to Entiercoeur that I messaged. That was her name, and that was how I knew her. And that was, whether I knew it at the time, a large part of why I loved her. If I had taken French instead of Spanish as my second language, and if I had tried to dress to match her after a fashion, I might have called myself ‘Entieresprit' – Whole Mind – for I was living the life of the mind, and I still am. But how much better am I to be completed, challenged, encouraged to a full heart in addition to a full mind? “It is not good that the man should be alone,” the Lord God says in Genesis when first a thing that is not good is commented on by the Supreme Judge and Creator of the universe and mankind. “I will make a help-meet suitable for him.” Just so, I imagine that God looked on a young Garrett Mullet much the way he looks on this now older self of mine, commenting in High Heaven that it is not good for me to be alone and that a help-meet suitable for me has been fashioned and provided. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

Horrifying TRUE Encounters From Reddit - THE YAHOO MESSENGER CREEP is a collection of stories that are certain to make you look over your shoulder. People truly can be creepy, and all of these stories highlight the truth to that statement. Want EARLY ACCESS to all my content? Check this out! https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join ✯✬✯✬✯✬ All stories come with a Mild Content Warning for Language and/or Graphic content. Viewer Discretion is advised. You're valid, and you are important- Never let anyone tell you otherwise. ✯✬✯✬✯✬ 【TIMESTAMPS

ASL please? 'Curious' here looking for other 'straight' guys. Ehem. Those were the days! Panahong pahirapan ang hook-ups dahil wala pang  Grindr.The project kikis about personal queer experiences using dating apps of a bygone era: MIRC, Friendster, and Yahoo Messenger; plus, we discuss misconceptions and individual confusions about queer dating culture then and now. Sino kaya sa mga bessie natin ang nang-tanso at natanso? Sino ang nakahanap ng love-of-their-life o nag-stick to one-night-stands? Sino ang nakipag-hook-up with a celebrity?Pass muna sa mga serious projects, mga Bes, at magbalik-tanaw muna tayo. Tara nang mag-Grand EyeBall sa episode na ito!If you enjoyed this project, please head on over to our website for more resources: www.balutkiki.com.If you are listening to us on Apple iTunes, Podchaser, PodcastAddict, etc., please leave us a rating and a review. This helps us appear on searches much quicker and allows people to discover our podcast easier so we are able reach and empower more.Better yet, please tell a friend about us, especially if that friend needs to relate to somebody going through a tough time, like sometimes we all do. Let them know they're not alone.Send us an email (balutkiki@gmail.com) if you have any questions, want a shoutout, or have suggestions on how we can improve on the podcast. We love hearing from all of you - keep them coming!If you want to support our show, please click on the BuyMeACoffee link below, and see how you can support us!Thanks for listening and there's much more to listen to! Binge away!(If you are a Filipino living in the Philippines and you, or somebody you know, are undergoing depression or having suicidal thoughts, try talking to somebody you trust or please go to the link:    https://doh.gov.ph/NCMH-Crisis-Hotline . It's okay to ask for help. )Support the show

At some point, dapat talaga i-admit natin that era of Yahoo! Messenger was truly a golden age of internet culture and a great precursor to the social media of today. Wow, daming werds. Pero legit, in this episode, we will tackle the lost art of YM and its forward-thinking features tulad ng "Invi". And no, hindi highlight ng YM ang porkspin. Ayus ayus din tayo please, 2021 na. BUZZ, Colin Join our Facebook group to be part of the conversation! https://www.facebook.com/groups/uncreators Sali lang kayo pero may rules diyan ah, so make sure u follow them, otherwise, 'matic kick kayo HMPPH. EMAIL US YOUR RESPONSES weareuncreate@gmail.com

Yahoo Messenger, MSN, Blogspot, Wordpress, Tumblr, Friendster, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Snapchat, Path, Instagram, Tik Tok, Anchor, Spotify, jadi kalian punya berapa account?

Sriram Krishnan is an Angel Investor currently focused on writing and investing in early-stage companies. Previously, he was Senior Product Lead at Facebook, Snapchat, & Twitter. In this conversation, Anthony and Sriram discuss his time growing up in India, how he met his wife on Yahoo Messenger, what he learned from Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel and Jack Dorsey, why organizations are systems, where his obsession with memos came from, and who the greatest basketball player of all time is. CRYPTO.COM-----The only all-in-one platform that allows you to BUY / SELL / STORE / EARN / LOAN / INVEST crypto all from one place. Join over 1 million users and download the Crypto.com app today to earn $50 USD using the code ‘pomp2020’ when you sign up for one of their MCO Visa Cards.  TAXBIT-----Refund-maximizing, cryptocurrency tax software you can depend on. Visit taxbit.com/invite/pomp and receive 10% off your tax plan today by signing up for a free trial. ETORO-----This episode of Off the Chain is sponsored by eToro, the smartest crypto trading platform, and one of the largest in the world. Join 11 million other traders and create an account at etoro.com and build your crypto portfolio the smart way.

Well, everyone else is doing a decade in review, so why not Bob & Kevin! Be sure to like, follow, subscribe or whatever the heck you need to do on your podcast listening platform of choice! Help us kick this show into high gear. Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bobandkevinshow and enjoy the show transcript below from our friends at https://otter.ai/ Kevin 0:00 So we're back Holy crap, it's the year 2020 Bob 0:05 I have so much disappointment about the statement of year 2020 I just can't even not really about the year itself or anything that it may or may not bring but you know there's just a lot of bullshit flying around right now about not just New Year new me. new decade new me whatever they're saying. I have no idea. Kevin 0:24 Yeah, this is the time of year when you start thinking, Man, maybe I should lose some weight. And of course, you know, even if you do lose weight, it finds you because the only thing that really works is changing the whole lifestyle thing like I don't know living to a state with mountains and hiking all the time. Hey, let me tell you that doesn't take off wait either, by the way, damn it. Oh, that stinks. So according to Back to the Future to in 1989 in the year 2015. Not only will the Cubs win the World Series, which was almost accurate as off by like one year, but we'd be flying around in our automobiles, Bob, are we there yet? Bob 1:05 Well, depends which call flying around. Yeah, we have some autonomous features and functionality in some of our vehicles. We even kind of have hovery skate boardy things. Not really though. Kevin 1:23 I don't know. So it's been a few weeks since we had a pod. We've had a few holidays. Today, as I saw on the internet is the Monday-ist Thursday of the entire year, and it certainly felt that way. Bob 1:37 This whole holiday break has been the shittiest shitty of anything. You could just fill in the blank Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Kevin 1:45 but did you acquire or partake in anything? especially notable over the holidays? Bob 1:54 I had two have my three kids home so that was kind of cool. would have been nice to be 3-for-3 Um, didn't really get any tech related gifts were really minimizing the whole Christmas thing. got this cool piece of artwork though, that I was looking at and my kids noticed that I was looking at it and they bought it for me Kevin 2:12 so awesome. So is it hanging in said, domicile, Bob 2:18 it is prominently displayed in the dining area. It is a collection of hand crafted pine trees they are I think they're created with a arc welder to actually cut out the metal and then uses some kind of patina technique to give them a cool bluish green tint. They're pretty awesome. How Kevin 2:42 about you? Um, yeah, so we are highly evolved. People as a couple my wife and I that is we don't buy each other gifts so usually tend to buy the kids some gifts. We've decided to go on a vacation few weeks after the holiday so that was part of their gift and then The fun thing I got to play with over the last week or so is a vinyl cutter that was not a part of Christmas. It was just one of those things sitting in a box that nobody Bob 3:08 I can't believe you had one of those and no one was using it. That's crazy. Kevin 3:12 Well, my wife's very into scrapbooking and she actually bought it for herself. And then once I learned we had set thing in our possession, boom, started using it and I've already made some stickers and tried screen printing with making it a laser cut stencils, some really cool things you can do. Bob 3:32 So I've seen pictures and some of this stuff looks pretty big. What's that? Like? I don't really know much about vinyl cutters and maybe some of our listeners don't. What? Yeah, but I saw his and hers above your bathroom. That's pretty big. Kevin 3:47 Yeah, so out of the box, so I have the cricket or we have I like it's mine now. Okay, we've got That's beautiful. Yeah, we've got the Cricut Explore air. I'm looking at it here it is on my desk. So possession is nine tenths of the law. So, out of the box, it cuts a 12 by 12 piece of vinyl if you want, and then it goes up to 12 by 24. If you buy a optional mat, which I've totally bought, and then really the sky's the limit because if you need something bigger than that, and you're using cricket, he just basically print it in sections and you put it together. Bob 4:26 So you tile it out. Hmm, Kevin 4:27 yeah, so the his and hers that you can find on my Instagram and or my Twitter account. Yeah. You probably won't go look for it. But I'm just saying the his and hers are one piece each and they are fairly large or like, Bob 4:41 Oh, those are 1pm or one piece each. Yep. So they worked probably on the 12 by 24. Kevin 4:46 Yes, that is correct. And I've since printed, some stickers, some JavaScript stickers. It's great for like laptop stuff. I'm showing Bob here some stickers to the camera. I've made one here for one of my kids. gran starion Yep, and I made him a white and black version. I made a an airborne patch because I was in airborne in the army here this is gonna go to my car and if you notice, what Bob can see is that you can have multiple colors which is really cool. You just layer them on there you cut them in you cut you know one color then you cut the other color then you put them on top of each other. It's pretty cool. Bob 5:23 Is any of this computer driven or is this all manual? Kevin 5:27 Well, the cutting in the designing is all computer driven. Bob 5:46 how much is a cricket runya Kevin 5:48 that's a 200 bucks and there's different versions like version one back in the day you got like Nintendo cartridges. were basically you know you had to buy this cartridge from the local craft store. Plug it in like a video game. Then you get to choose, you know, from an enumerated list of things and is kind of shitty after a while because you're like, but I want to print this custom thing. Oh, here comes version two points version 2.0 is like, hey, we've got this app. And all you basically need is a transparent background. png file. And there we go. And then there's a ton of videos on YouTube to kind of get you going. And holy crap. I'm like, pretty excited. I'm not gonna lie. You appear to be having Bob 6:30 fun with it, because I see lots of pictures. And sorry, you answer you said you're integrating that with your screen printing as well. Kevin 6:37 So yeah, I guess I guess I haven't really talked about screen printing on the show. So I do screen printing. It's kind of like my analog hobby when I just want to get away from the digital world. And so there's many ways to screen printing Bobby, you said you use the screen for maybe you still do, but not still, but used to that there's three primary ways and the first way I I learned was you buy this thing called an emulsion sheet which is pre coated and it's sensitive to sunlight. You print something on a transparency, plop it on top, go out in the sun for a minute, and then you wash it out. And it works actually really well. One drawback there is you can't keep tension on it. So you know, it's guys drawbacks, but it's very easy to burn. The second is the traditional way, which is you, you. Grape, I guess is the right or you go a screen, a traditional screen squeegee the screen. Well, Bob 7:33 now before you get to the squeegee, you kind of said that most of you put the emotion on the squeegee to so Kevin 7:39 well that's the thing I've got. It's like it's called a scoop coder. So you scoop code it and then that's like a Bob 7:45 net sloshing around. Kevin 7:46 You've got to do it in a dark room. So I've had to put together a makeshift dark room and a half and I had to buy red lights and everything. And then I had to build and I'm going to show Bob this. I don't know if you can see it right at the end of my desk here right radio. I know right? The end of my desk is it Hey, this houses my undeveloped screens because it's light sensitive. And so I turn all the lights out usually at night time and then I expose them with UV light. So that's method to method three to bring it back to the cricket is to vinyl cut something and then just apply it right to the screen but you do it in reverse and put it on the bottom side. And then you just squeegee it through. Now I think that's brilliant. Now each way actually has their pros and cons. Do you think that the vinyl cut way is like well, why wouldn't you always do that just less mess easy. The drawback is if you have very fine detail, the vinyl cutter isn't the best solution for that. Really? Yes, you'll want to go traditional in the ocean with the UV light or the or the first method. Bob 8:45 Did I see that you did our logo as a final cut as well did and that turned out Kevin 8:49 really freakin well. So if you want like a car sticker. Oh, that's great. Yes. Bob 8:54 Oh shit. Yeah. Did you remake the did you make the audio waves or was that right from the logo? That Kevin 8:59 is right. Right from the audio, I did not remake anything. Bob 9:02 Damn, that did look good. I'm actually if anyone's interested in checking that out. Did you share that on the show Tweeter, Kevin 9:09 I you know, I have no idea anymore. We have so many accounts, both personal and professional podcasting accounts that it's Bob 9:17 really hard to keep track of super, super professional podcasting accounts. So, um, before we get into the meat of the show, this is kind of like a little transitional thing. Speaking of the show social media. One of the show New Year's resolutions that I've made for myself is to try to be more engaged in the marketing of the show. So I want to share with listeners since we're less than 10 minutes in and maybe most of you are still here, our primary platform appears to be looking back at the 2019 stats, Spotify. So if you are on Spotify, please I think they have a follow button and using that follow button actually subscribe to the podcast but then also helps Spotify algorithm determine where to show our podcast is recommended to some folks that may not have heard us in the past couple years. So that's pretty Kevin 10:12 good do that. That'd be very that's a great resolution. I have traditionally stayed away from resolutions but I did give myself some. So a little more personal info about me. I am a arms dealer of Lego so Bob 10:28 You scared the shit out of me for a second. Kevin 10:31 I buy sell Lego and that's kind of a finicky thing because you know, you just got to pick out the right one then you basically turn around keep them for a while and you sell them but what I learned with that experiences Wow, it is really awesome to make money while you sleep. And I've tried six ways from Sunday to to make money in software like an open source projects making this little library that is that is a tough business. So selling frickin Legos has made Like a million times more money than any software gig I've tried to do on the side, just putting that out there. So the problem with Lego is, is, well, eventually you run out of the good stuff. So I've been into woodworking slash screen printing for the last four or five, six months. And that's where my future efforts are going to continue. And I'm going to open up an Etsy store and I'm going to sell a bunch of woodworking stuff. And I like to really bore the shit out of people by posting all my projects that I have on Instagram often Bob 11:35 No, I love it because I'm not as artistic as I used to be. And it's cool to see you making stuff. I mean, I'm, I'm super engaged with all of my friends that do creative things outside of code. Because I don't do that much creatively outside of code. Well, except maybe podcast. Kevin 11:54 I've definitely I'm at peace with the idea that I'm a creative person, but I don't necessarily have to do In the digital realm, and so I really really, really like balancing my digital creativity with analog creativity. So I played music play guitar, I Bob 12:10 I draw I you know, I fabric Kevin does all the show artwork in case anybody didn't know that. Yes, Kevin 12:16 stick figure art is harder than it looks. Bob 12:21 Especially when you have an annoying co host. It's like, Can you make it look like this? Kevin 12:25 Yes. So yeah, the creativity thing. That's kind of my resolution thing, but in so expect more show swag. Bob and Kevin show branded show swag that you probably can't buy because you probably don't want to buy it. But Bob 12:41 I might have but if you're good listeners and drop us some lines on social media, maybe you'll just could Kevin 12:47 Yeah, Bob 12:48 possibly get some and then Kevin 12:50 I've done a lot of signs that. So confession time Kevin really likes Pinterest and from what I understand That's that's, you know, takes a lot of courage sticks, you know, to say that so I really like Pinterest and I steal all my great woodworking ideas from there. There I said it. Bob 13:10 You use it as your creative Muse you don't steal? Yeah, Kevin 13:13 I liked you could be my marketing manager if this ever goes anywhere. Bob 13:18 I like it. I don't think you're going to need one. I think the shop speaks for itself. Well, alright, so we've talked a little bit about some resolutions. And I think that it's a very popular, hip trendy thing for shows like ours to take a look back at the prior year and technology or whatever the topic of conversation is, but since we did turn that big decade clock, I think we turned the decade clock. I think there's debate on that as well. But everyone's saying we turn the decade clock. So I think we're going to take a little bit of a look back at the the decade in tech. Kevin 13:56 Does that sound about right? Yeah. So the other day, I think we'd agreed upon some ground rules on what should we freakin talk about in our New Year's episode? And you didn't follow any of the ground rules? Oh, we'll see. We'll see. So the rules were that we had to come up with the 10 best and 10 worst things and or releases or objects tech related in the last decade. Right. That was kind of the right rules. Bob 14:22 Yeah. And a little glimpse behind the curtain for those of you who listen, and we probably mentioned this before, this show is not highly scripted at all. And when we do come up with topics like this, we don't share like our our conversations during the day get very awkward because we want to talk about this stuff, but we can't. So I have no idea what Kevin's top 10 and top 10 lists are and he has no idea what mine are. But I'm actually pretty excited to see if there's any overlap at all. In which would be even the most entertaining is if I have something on the good list. He has it on the bad. Or vice versa. Like, Kevin 15:03 it's like the naughty and nice list. Bob 15:05 Yes. So So where do we want to start? Let's hear let's just so I did rank Where did you rank yours? I don't know how heavy my writer rank in descending order from 10 to one, I have two honorable mentions in each category. All right, Kevin 15:19 very good. Let's just give me your 10th best technology of the 2010s. Bob 15:25 What should I do my honorable mentions first because they're outside the top 10? Kevin 15:31 Uh, no. Give me Bob 15:33 the Oh, we're going to close out with those after we get the number one. Yes. So we're doing the positive ones first. Kevin 15:39 Let's go back and forth. So we'll do a best one will do this one and then so Okay. Bob 15:45 All right. So this one is going to be my number 10 of the most positive things and tech from the last decade. For me, I said the rise of music subscription services and the end of the CD and Digital piracy era I key cuz full disclosure, I used to sometimes stumble across music that I didn't own prior to the 2010s Kevin 16:11 that's, that's interesting because look, are you including or maybe you don't want to tell me streaming video as well Bob 16:20 and this this is specifically to get it so so I was kind of looking at personal things so as well as like big industries the Kevin 16:28 streaming is huge and it's such a strange concept to no longer have a tangible piece of music like an album if you are does an album even exist anymore. Bob 16:41 Yeah, actually really cool. hipsters will release their albums on vinyl on very limited release, although it has been increasing in popularity again. But this has been a very big conversation in our house over the holidays to with the digital music, because nobody actually owns the music anymore. So David, for the most part, David Neil Kevin 17:00 Also known as at Reverend geek, he was on one of the early Bob and Kevin show, YouTube additions. He tweeted the other day is like, hey, CDs, it's kind of like an offline version of Spotify just laughed my ass off. So, Bob 17:16 but it's not, though, because the CD doesn't know what you want to hear next. Kevin 17:20 There's no algorithm, Bob 17:22 right? There's no algorithm on the disk. Okay, Kevin 17:25 well, you can burn your own playlist. So I guess there's, there's some in there, Bob 17:29 I know. But think about it. So we went through that evolution where you had a bunch of CDs that you purchased at the store, then you digitize those CDs. And then you took those CDs in major own mix CDs. So think about how much waste we've, Kevin 17:46 I don't know, not prevented, but ceased to create because of this movement, but that or do we just move it because now everything's streamed and you have to create the energy to move the bits each and every time Bob 18:00 Yeah, but the internet was gonna do that anyway. But it Kevin 18:03 didn't need to do this. Pick a song over and over and over and over and over and over again and it never downloads anyway, Bob 18:10 that's what bandwidth is about. Alright, so let me throw that was my number 10. What was yours? Kevin 18:15 My number 10 Best thing was the iPad slash smartphone. So I realized that's a very broad category. Bob 18:23 I like where you're going with that though, because phones have basically become iPads lately. Kevin 18:26 Well, the iPad was released in 2010. And full disclosure, I made a lot of fun of it at the time because I'm like, this is stupid. This will never work. There's no keyboard oh my gosh, why would she do there's no apps you know, live to do them. I was wrong. I am raising my hand for the camera here. I was wrong. And then smartphones themselves I worked at a wireless carrier, a Verizon Wireless carrier, and I was a part of the retail side of moving a bunch of smartphones to the public. I realized the iPhone was invested in 2007. But I really don't think it took off until Android was released, which was in that neighborhood. I'd have to have the internet we don't have and can't afford look that up. But I do remember at the time blackberry happened to be king, Bob 19:17 right? Hey, oh, god, you're gonna laugh so hard. This is the best radio ever got. I can't wait, keep going. Kevin 19:23 Well, I was just gonna mention Whatever happened to hard Qwerty keyboards on the phones. Well, they lost to the soft screen. So what do you think? Bob 19:33 Well, I think that that's a great number 10 for the positives. Do you want to hear my number 10 for the negative laid on me. Listeners at home, this is not scripted by number 10 for some of the downside things, I guess this actually could be spent as a positive people who should not have been making phones like Facebook, Amazon, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone Those are all really bad smartphones of the 20. Kevin 20:04 Well, I allow me to split hairs. blackberry was the jam. So if you want a corporate email on your phone, Blackberry was it. I mean, even President Obama was like, give me my crackberry Bob 20:19 it was, but very early on in the 2010s. blackberry was already in the throes of like the death throes the last twitches of life where they came out with their tablet. I can't remember what they called it, but it was you know, they were trying to revive their, their smartphone presence and they just couldn't do it. So I totally Kevin 20:41 missed by I totally missed Windows Phone but I wouldn't say I missed it. Or do miss it. Blackberry. I think they tried to come out with a soft screen again. Bob, Bob's holding up his Bob 20:54 apparently I my windows 8.1 phone that I still have because it runs like a beat Kevin 21:00 So in Facebook, do they actually have a smartphone? Bob 21:04 So Facebook was toying with the idea of a smartphone and what they did instead of making the hardware, they came out with a basically a flavor of Android that they tried to distribute on pre made devices and, like a lot of Facebook things it didn't. Kevin 21:21 While we're talking Facebook up a quick reminder that my particular version of Android cannot uninstall Facebook. I can only disable it. Thanks, Mark, because I didn't need that 300 mega space on my phone anyway, right. Bob 21:36 I'm gonna make a quick prediction here that Facebook is going to come up in this conversation more than what can I do my Kevin 21:41 number 10 then Hell yeah. Number 10. Worst thing the bad thing was the bad yeah, bad things. Facebook acquires Instagram in 2012 Bob 21:53 Wow, that was still that was wet number 10. For you. Wow. It's it's in this list is gonna get into Kevin 22:00 Yeah the list is young. So yeah so in in 2012 I don't know that any of us including the FTC, or whatever government agency overlords you know, mergers and stuff like that. I don't think they necessarily saw future things like surveillance state 2016 election, Cambridge Analytica, yada yada yada in 2012. So yeah, sure, why not? You got money, they, you can buy them great. And nobody really understood how the filter bubbles and how speech was going to be shaped in 2019 2020. Well, pick a year. Bob 22:38 So you're so funny. God, this is the best. I knew this was going to be great. Kevin 22:42 So what do you think? hasman number 10. Bob 22:46 Number. Yeah, that's very interesting that that's your number 10 because you kind of bit off a lot there. So I'm very curious to hear what 931 are for the bad. Well, Kevin 22:57 yeah, I may have tipped my hand a little bit. But let's let's go with your number nine, what's your number nine. Bob 23:02 Okay thing. So number nine positives. It's funny that you said iPad was your number 10. Number nine for me was the Microsoft Surface Book. Because in the surface the surface line of products from Microsoft, very much along the same lines, full functional computing with detachable screens in still very pop powerful graphics processing and overall CPU not just the GPU so I love my Surface Book. I have one personally and one professionally, and they're talking about getting new machines at work. Luckily, we've already run the disclaimer If not, I'll drop it in here as well. But I don't want a new one. I don't want a new machine. I like my surface. Wow. So Microsoft for as much as they struggle. I feel like in various consumer based hardwares and software's windows 10 and Surface line we're pretty big in the 2010s for me so I think so Kevin 24:04 I've never had a surface but here's what grinds my gears with when with with Microsoft Surface before the Microsoft Surface that you're talking about debuted Microsoft had another surface Do you remember that at all? Bob 24:19 Well, I think they have the I would guess they call it the they don't call it the plain vanilla but they do have just the surface period. And it you know, has a type of cover and Nope, nope, nope. Kevin 24:30 Other surface so in 2011 I went to Indianapolis, Indiana to the Gen Con board game convention. Yeah, nerd alert. Bob 24:40 Right. So we need to alert nerd alert drop right. Kevin 24:44 So back then Microsoft had a product called surface but it was a table that was so thick of the screen is the table top and you can put things on it and it would you know like capacitive touch, you would know what's on it and then they would it was really good. Cool, but they totally went away from that. So, Bob 25:03 yeah, I wish I wish they would go back. Maybe they'll bring it back maybe. All right. Are you ready? So that was my nine, number nine positive. So your number nine positive is Kevin 25:12 Azure, AWS slash cloud, the cloud, all the things now this is cloud computing, cloud computing, right? And this is very near and dear to my like, daily professional life, because one of the worst things that I can imagine as a web developer is on premise hosting. You know, yeah, on one hand, you're like, yeah, I have control the box, I can do whatever. But with AWS and Azure, there's this concept of server less, which, by the way, it's still Bob 25:42 a real server, right? It's in a box, which Kevin 25:44 it's terrible naming when they say server lists it, explaining it to non tech people. Oh, so there's no server. No, there is a server, it's just virtualized. Anyway, I digress. So but it's really changed my day to day job. It's really enabled this thing called DevOps automation, and it's really changed. Like the landscape of everyone because it what it does, what it does is it lowers the bar, you know, expose the CD ends to Joe developer, Jane developer. It does all these things. So you mentioned earlier music streaming, I humbly think that the cloud revolution helped enable the streaming revolution. What do you think? Bob 26:23 Oh, I think so much of that is dead on, you know, physical boxes. Don't really, I mean, I'm sure they exist. I'm sure there's tons of them out there still. But yeah, that platform, the whole idea of that distributed computing that is easily accessible and the, you know, the front end that they've given all that stuff with the front end tool, so it's not all command line stuff. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Kevin 26:50 Yeah. And AWS started because they basically had an internal need and then they just said, Hey, wouldn't be cool if we just sold some of our capacity. I don't know. Azure has a similar history but I thought that is some of the best ways to create tech you know, create a business which is solve a real problem and then see if you can make it generic and or you know, you know, abstracted if you will, so that was mine. Which guy Bob 27:19 so, we're on so my it's my number nine bad one, right? Yes. Okay, so I kind of went off the beaten path a little bit on this one. This is kind of more of a pet peeve than a so my number nine is bad Kickstarter tech launches. And the one that really comes to mind from the 2010s is the the coolest cooler, which was the cooler that was just trying to be way too many things than just a cooler. I think it had streamable music it had multiple USB chargers speakers on board. It had everything Swiss Army knife Kevin 27:58 or cooler Right. Bob 27:59 Yeah. But for a fucking cooler so I think that paved the way for a bunch of people to be like, Hey, I know this crazy thing that's a bunch of things taper to other things and let's start a Kickstarter for it. And that got really annoying. So Kevin 28:15 full disclosure, I think in 2013 or 14 I was part of a Kickstarter campaign totally failed. But that reminds me because this isn't on any of my list. I'm glad you brought this one up. Because Patreon, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe. Those are the ones just off the top my head. Everyone in their brother and sister are holding their hand out going Hey, give me money. Why? Because of an idea. Okay, well, Bob 28:48 or I can't make rent. here's the kicker. Here's a good one for I can't make rent this month. Yeah. Kevin 28:54 Yeah. So I still like being, you know, contributing when I can can do a charity I'm mostly I can contribute my time not so much money. Every time I see a Patreon for somebody I know, we call it the Tupperware problems, like, I gotta buy at least two bowls, you know, a salad bowl with the leg, make sure you get the lids, otherwise, you know, he's gonna be pissed. And you know, I want to be friends still. And so we call it the Tupperware party, Bob and I do and it's really hard because you look, as a creator, we're Bob and I are both creators, we look and go, I look at all these great, you know, people doing great things and getting Patreon. But then it's like the top 1% It feels like that's, that's actually getting somewhere on these platforms. And then there's everyone else. So Kickstarter sells you this dream and with the 1% actually doing it and they collect, you know, the funds underneath as a fee. So I really look at that stuff and go on. That's just, I don't even know what to call it's not really snake oil, but it's definitely like Same shit different, you know method here where, hey, we're just trying to separate people from money, right? Bob 30:06 Well, my boys bless their hearts. They're both big fans of Kickstarter type projects. And they are just now receiving stuff that they invested in when they were in their mid teens. And they're both in their 20s Kevin 30:23 man, also not a super long game. I guess I won't tell you what's not on my list just in case it's still on your list. All right, let me go with my number nine and you'll be like we're What? The Video Game fortnight This is on my negative list. Bob 30:38 Oh, that's so funny. Kevin 30:42 Video Game my mind. So go ahead. So I put fortnite on there. Mostly Bob 30:46 for shit. No, I did put a video game on mine. Well, I'm Kevin 30:51 so fortnite just the way it affects all the kids. All the children in my orbit. my nieces, my nephews, my own kids. These people are dicted listen Like a real drug and on top of that, it pretty much shut down every other video game except for maybe Minecraft and untitled goose game. Alright, so there's like three video games left in the world because of fortnight has just totally come in steamrolled everything. And they have this concept of V bucks, where, you know, the kids are like, Hey, can we get or can we get a gift card for Microsoft so we can apply it to our Xbox so we can basically just give it away. I'm like, Oh my god, this is this is life. And then there's like this internal gambling addiction that they all have, because you can get these llamas and these crates and you get this random thing that comes out. And while I'm on the gambling thing, my girls who don't play fortnight as much they do play fortnight. They have toys like lol dolls are familiar lol dolls. It so so. So if you go to Walmart or any retailer, they'll have them so it's a sealed box opaque. You can't see what's in it. The whole idea is you got to buy it to see what's in it and it plays on these like human emotions. curiosity. Anyway, so number nine is fortnight for me What am I? Bob 32:08 Oh, that is a great so now we're to my number eight. Kevin 32:13 Number eight positive Bob 32:14 number eight positive and I lied and I want to stress again this is not scripted, we did not see each other's list. My number eight positive tech from the 2010s is Minecraft because it's a family focused gaming adventure and you can play it with your kids and actually with my kids, I taught them how to manage their own minecraft server so they weren't out there messing around with the general public so taught them how to give server line commands basically through the through the Minecraft thing so this is so funny that you were fortnight and now I'm on Minecraft so Kevin 32:56 okay so interesting sacred you're picking Minecraft Yes, Minecraft Bob 33:02 positive. Oh, okay. Kevin 33:03 Yeah so Minecraft I think has replaced Lego and a lot of housecalls for sure yeah Bob 33:09 digital Lego without a doubt yeah and when I again Kevin 33:12 another thing I was totally wrong on with Minecraft cuz I see it I'm like what the hell is this shit The graphics are terrible right you know it's very blocky no kids gonna like this right they're just gonna be like oh well you know give me like Call of Duty or something with high end graphics but actually I kind of like Minecraft because it It stimulates creativity and building and whatnot. Bob 33:38 Yep, that's pretty much why I was coming in at number eight for me of the 2010 Alright, so Kevin 33:42 my number eight you'll probably snicker a little bit is crypto slash blockchain. Bob 33:51 So this is your number eight positive Oh, Kevin 33:53 oh, I'm sorry. This is my negative shoot. Bob 33:58 No, that's why Kevin 34:00 I totally messed up. So all right, I'm gonna I'll come back to my number eight positive because I've already tipped my hand. So my number eight negative is crypto blockchain because as of right now, I don't think crypto blockchain has changed the world because that's basically what all the crypto slash blockchain people are saying, Oh, we got a blockchain all the thing it will change the face of insert industry, crypto currency, it will change the face of whatever. I'm still waiting for it to change any part of my life. Bob, what part of your life has it changed? Bob 34:35 Um, I think the only thing that it's really affected is our podcasting because of the Libra kinds of Libra crypto trying to desperately make its way to market. We did do that experiment a couple years back with investing in crypto and tracking the markets. So but that was more just fun. And I Still have not recouped from where we invested. Kevin 35:03 Yeah, you and I totally hit the apex of crypto hey look at all this great stuff happening in crypto let's invest and the good thing I sold out right, I am out for save whatever 15 bucks a Bitcoin was worth a few months ago. Bob 35:19 Yeah, I'm still in. I'm still in. Kevin 35:22 Yeah, we're such suckers, man. Such suckers. Alright, so that was my number eight negative. Do you want me to catch up and just do my number eight positive and then we'll Yeah, we'll just flip it so you do your number a positive so my number eight positive is SpaceX reusable rockets. Wow. So you and I had a live stream of the Falcon Heavy launch which highlighted the landing of the booster rockets and that was in 2017. We had my kids. Bob 35:56 They got two out of three on that one, right? Kevin 35:59 Something like that. But it looked like a frickin science fiction alien invasion movie, which was awesome. Bob 36:07 Suit I got choked up. Kevin 36:09 Oh, me too. And to this day every time they stick the landing, which is it pretty much every Bob 36:14 time now it's regular now. Yeah, Kevin 36:16 that's, that's awesome. I think one of the rockets that went up recently was like its fourth or fifth flight. And that's gotta save money somewhere. And I've heard a lot of people say, Oh, it won't be financially feasible still, you just gotta throw those away and start over. But I think they're starting to prove that wrong. What do you think? Bob 36:35 Yeah, no, I think they're getting financial benefit with the multi launch multi land for sure. That's how they're able to really kind of like supplement the starlink programs. So yeah, the reusable rockets. That's brilliant. Yeah. So and for the most part right now, those are 100%. unmanned trips, right? Kevin 36:55 Yeah. They are testing the ability to send up manned crew and they've had some success recently, because right now we're actually dependent on Russia of all people to send people up the space station. And I will be in Florida in a couple months and trying to catch a falcon nine launch for the starlink program but that's about like thread that needle at this point. Bob 37:21 Right You showed me the schedule it looks like it's not going to happen while you're there. Kevin 37:25 You know, I don't know the schedule enough to know that maybe I'm just looking too far out and they're just gonna fill the schedule or or what have you, but I'm excited. My kids are too They want to see it. Bob 37:35 That would be awesome. Kevin 37:36 Yes. All right. We're up to your number eight. Worst, my number. My number eight bad. Yes. Bob 37:44 This could be a trip down memory lane for some not a positive one. Kevin, did you ever hear of the lytro camera back in the 2010 never heard of it. It is a light Field Camera. And it was supposed to revolutionized digital photography. And it looked like a rectangular tube. But what the camera did it was supposed to capture the infinity of the light that created an image. So you could capture that photograph doing air quotes. And then you could do it ever you wanted to with after that, because it had infinite resolution. That's interesting. So, Kevin 38:28 yeah, it failed, by the way. So have you ever been in photography? Bob 38:33 I yeah, I actually do love photography. And I should love to Kevin 38:37 talk. So when you focus on a certain spot it becomes or there's a certain spot of moving the focal length and you'll hit what's called the hyper focal distance. And everything beyond that point is in focus. It's just like, we can take a picture of a mountain range and it's like, why is that always in vice, the background noise and focus because you've got the focal length, that's the hyperfocal distance, anything in front of You start getting the beaucaire or Boca or however you want to pronounce it. I don't even know what the real word way of pronouncing that is. Bob 39:07 But it's I'm not that big in photography, Kevin 39:09 but to get the subject in focus in the background out of focus. So anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sounds interesting. But you said it totally failed. Bob 39:17 Yeah, first of all, they were super expensive. And the UX, the form factor for the device itself was just very clunky. So, but it was something at the time, I was very into photography and spending money on lenses and things like that, and was very excited about but there was no way I could afford it. When it came out. They came up with a better form factor, but it was still like over 1600 dollars. I think at the time, well, Kevin 39:47 you know what, there's a there's a thing called the iPhone 11. That's got about three cameras on it, and it's a little less than that. So Bob 39:54 right and you can totally adjust that bootcut whatever it is, too. So yeah. Kevin 39:59 Interesting. Bob 40:01 All right, but yeah, so that was yet some of these are very personal to me. So this is pretty fun. Kevin 40:07 I'm glad I didn't bet money if what your number eight was eight would be all right, my number seven positive is 3d printing slash CNC slash vinyl cutting. Bob 40:22 Man, I'm so glad you hit that market too. Kevin 40:24 So 3d printing for me it's very cool. I've seen people make just some ridiculously cool things are basically like hey, yeah, we'll take one of those it's sort of like the the real life replicator from Star Trek shout out to start a supplemental. We need a nice here we need to eventually do this crossover episode Bob 40:43 crossover coming soon. Kevin 40:44 Yes. So that's what I think a 3d printer does. My vinyl cutter is that 2d printer very cool. In I've also seen that they can 3d print organs now which is like totally mind blowing like, hey, can 3d print a new heart and stuff They're printing. Bob 41:00 Yeah, they're printing meat too, which is really weird. Kevin 41:04 So I think 3d printing is still early, but I think it has a lot of promise. I've seen 3d printed houses out of concrete, you know, for in developing countries, just they can just set up a machine and it prints overnight. Yeah, just mind boggling. So what do you think? Bob 41:21 Yeah, I think that that's a really good one. I actually did not touch upon 3d printing. But it's funny that you brought it up because my wife the other day was asking if 3d printers were getting cheaper, and so I thought that was really like that was a bizarre, surreal moment in the baby bar household that she was even considering 3d 3d printing. I like the aspect of 3d printing as well as like printing pieces or tools to do things without having to go to the store to purchase tools. I think that's pretty cool as well. Kevin 41:54 Yeah. Yeah. I played the game civilization quite often. And one of the technologies that you can unlock is called replaceable parts, you know, like preceeds. Like, it's like Civil War era type thing where you could start, you know, fixing things rather than just having to craft it from A to Z every time well give me a couple of these parts, and then we're back to New. So I see the 3d printer is an extension of replaceable parts. And not that I think a hardware store is going to go out of business anytime soon. But when 3d printers become more ubiquitous, that might change. Bob 42:30 Well didn't one of the like space shuttle missions or some space mission space station, maybe even they were able to 3d print a wrench that helped them out in a situation or something like that Kevin 42:42 sounds familiar, but I can't recall the exact one. All right, we got anyway. Yeah, that's a great, well gotta move on. I say what's your number seven positive Bob 42:51 by number seven positive is pretty interesting because I think you've already alluded to this, but number seven positive was cable cutting with streaming services like Sling TV. And we've talked about this on the show several times where I think in the early 2010s when this started to happen, it was meant to be a very positive thing. But now with every service jumping on the streaming subscription bandwagon, really if you add them all back together, it probably costs more than traditional cable Kevin 43:22 and it has the side effect of putting us into an additional filter bubble. We haven't really talked about filter bubbles on this episode just yet, but you know, you're in your platform, you're in your channels and you're you know, you're on Netflix. I cord cut in 2012 off of DirecTV and my wife was pissed she's like, I want my whatever that we remember DVR. I mean, back then, you had to DVR things now. Everything's on demand. I mean, just the world has changed so much. Bob 43:51 Yeah, we need my family off. DVR was a very interesting experience to the cord cutting. So Kevin 43:56 yeah, I like it. I guess now we can transition to My number seven worst and it is crisper. Are you familiar with crisper? Bob 44:07 The DNA editor Kevin 44:08 so I would like to bundle this with DNA testing as well. So there's a Netflix series I forget what it's called, but it follows how crisper works and things like that. And I don't even want to you know, it's not a religious thing and nothing like that. I just think it's a bad idea to fuck with nature, Bob 44:26 right? Oh, I think gene editing is a terrible idea. Kevin 44:29 Yeah, um, the The one thing I think is is way more acceptable is GMOs. You know, if we can make corn feed us more and you know, whatever, that's fine but trying to alter somebody's intellect I color you know, the frick people aren't frickin ecommerce items. I mean, I guess you are in some countries, which is very sad. But so, you know, you don't order your children often many right? Bob 44:57 Yeah, and I can really can't imagine a society where you Would I mean, that's definitely a black mirror up. So Kevin 45:02 for sure, well, I mean, I could definitely, you know, play antagonistic to myself. People would say, Well, Kevin, we can eliminate cancer, we can eliminate whatever, whatever. But you and I are coders what happens when we fix bugs Bob? Bob 45:17 New bugs have Thank you. Kevin 45:20 cancer, but you're gonna create God knows what literally God knows wouldn't be the only one who knows what. And maybe that wipes this all out. Period. Bob 45:28 Right. It's just a cascade of it's just a bit. It's a cascade of bad consequences. Kevin 45:33 Yeah, so. All right, well, so I think the pendulum has now swung your number six. Bob 45:41 Good. Now I think we're on my saddle bag. Right. Kevin 45:44 Say it's good thing. We should call it a good thing. We're calling this out because I can't even count the 10 apparently. Bob 45:49 That's okay. Number seven bad is Google in perpetual beta throughout the 20 times, and then the ultimate bait and switch where free services no longer We're free services. That one's pretty self explanatory. I think we hate all the big tech giants with equal Kevin 46:07 disregard. So I'm familiar with the website, killed by Google. com. Bob 46:14 I'm pretty sure we brought it up. And when you're talking about all the companies Kevin 46:16 are also actually brought this up just for this episode. And I did not know two things on here are actually already scheduled for the X number one is Angular JS be one that is no longer supported, as of one year from now, so in one year for using Angular one dot, whatever, and I realized that's very nerdy and very like specific to coding and I am trying not to go down specific things here. But Angular JS is an older but super popular thing that we used Bob 46:49 to go super stable. Kevin 46:50 Yes, absolutely. I Bob 46:51 don't know why they fucked with the law. Kevin 46:53 Well, reasons right. Then here's the one that I was like. Are you kidding me? Google Hangouts is being Bob 47:01 I did hear that they were sundowning that, but I think they're just giving it a different name to be on it. Kevin 47:06 Yeah, apparently it's going to be called shit. I don't sit here, it's gonna be part of the G Suite. So maybe it's just, they're just not making direct money on because people just use hangouts for random garden variety shit. And that probably costs money. Right? Bob 47:22 Right. And they want to bring it into G Suite because G Suite is not one of their paid things. Yeah, so that's Kevin 47:27 kind of another 12 months according to kill by Google, but killed by Google is kind of a fun website because he just I mean, it's a lot of scrolling a lot of vertical scrolling of Holy shit. All of that is now dead. And while the lay person could probably care less than we do, but Bob and I, you know, when when we're asked to integrate with service x, I don't know about you, Bob. But when it's owned by Google, I go, Oh, well, how long do we even have left with whatever this is, Bob 47:58 right. It's a Total question mark for sure. Kevin 48:01 hate it. And I, you mentioned google maps that totally did a bait and switch on that. I'm trying to get Google out of my life, if you will. I'm actually using DuckDuckGo lot more. And if you do like a search on DuckDuckGo, and like directions, it's actually powered by Apple Maps, which is kind of an interesting twist on things. Oh, boy. Apparently, I don't know if I like that. I haven't really used Apple Maps. I heard it was really bad. And they've made improvements and I'm know apple. Bob 48:36 I think they bought ways one of them bought ways Google or Apple to go. Okay, Google that. Okay. Yeah, Kevin 48:41 that was unceremoniously explained to me the other day when I was like, why is Google Maps and way so similar? Whatever ignorant thing I said. Okay, so, so your number six positive, that's what we're up to. And then I know this is gonna be real nerdy, so I'll try to keep up light for the general listener. hub picks the number one spot over there the decade to become the go to place to dump your source code. Bob 49:08 Now, I think that's a good one. Kevin 49:10 Now, why does that matter? Well, I can tell you it prior to the 2010s. Source Control was very optional. And a lot of people may say, Yeah, right, not where we work. But let me tell you, I worked a lot of places, and it was copy paste, and you do control C, Control V, that's your backup. And they said, you know, it just put the little numbers that Windows does, you know, 123 as you control C, Control V. So GitHub really changed it. There was a bunch of competitors, and there still are subversion, whatnot, and then Microsoft bought them. So that was kind of a big deal that happened recently. And why does this matter? Well, GitHub is very known for open source and basically, the open source revolution. I'm going to try to put that in here as well. It's a big deal for both programmers and non programmers why is it important for non programmers? Because the programmers can bring you things that they couldn't before. What do you think? Bob 50:08 Yeah, and I think it's a great learning tool opportunity for developers and non developers alike. If you're interested in getting into code. GitHub being basically the open source, you know, realm, you can, you can just pick up a lot of great grades. I'm sure you can pick up a lot of garbage too, but there's a lot of good stuff out there. Kevin 50:27 So okay, where does that leave us? Which list are you on? Remember now? Bob 50:32 That was your number six positive so it's time for my number six positive and I think this one will be brief. I think slack is my number six positive and its ability to kind of almost fulfill the Facebook mission of bringing people together without necessarily all the ads in bullshit stuff that I'm sure we'll talk about a little later. Kevin 50:58 So yeah, slack is my number six. Good. So when I worked at the first agency I worked at we were an early adopter of slack. So slack was created in 2012. We start using in 2013. And, and at at the time, it's like, yes, it's cool, but I thought it was just yet another thing that you know, was out there. But it's really changed things because it's dead simple. It's web based. It pretty much killed off things. And it'll probably laugh AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, remember, I mean, you'd have to have all of those installed. Because depending on who you want to talk to, right? Bob 51:34 Yes. Do you remember that one that pulled them all together? I can't think of the name of it now. But there was like a universal chat app that you basically registered all your other accounts through and you could use it Damn it. I can't remember it was called Kevin 51:46 it sounds sketchy price stores your password. Bob 51:49 Yeah, there was all kinds of shitty stuff with that, but it was a trillion trillion Pro. I love to trillion. Alright, so let's see. Where's an hour back to the bad? Right? Okay, so Kevin 52:03 so my number six, and this is going to be specific. But Oracle sued Google because of Android, the API's and aerosol. Yeah. And that's still being litigated. And it's for like billions of dollars and Oracle is one the initial judgment, and Google's appealing. But the real trouble with this isn't the money that's changing hands, because you and I wouldn't say it anyway. It's doesn't have anything to do with us. But it set the precedent that the API signatures I believe, is, and I could have this totally wrong, but the API signature think of the interfaces as copyrightable. Not the implementation, but just having a method named void save or something. Bob 52:42 Yeah, see, that's crap. That's like, I don't know. That's like trademarking toilet paper. Yeah. Kevin 52:48 So, speaking of frivolous patents, I should maybe I put that in that maybe that's the overarching theme here. somebody tried to claim that the shaft car was their patented invention and in fact, I believe they actually got the patent, and Newegg contested it because this guy is like hey, Newegg. And if you're not familiar Newegg. They're like a computer retailer. You owe us a bunch of money because you have a shopping cart completely like was like, you know, you can't patent the mouse click. The shopping cart is obvious. So, patent trolls and whatnot. I just hate that kind of stuff. So we put that in there too. What do you think? Bob 53:29 Well, I think that's great. I yeah, there's so many shitty things that apparently happened in 2010. Kevin 53:34 And we're only halfway done. Bob 53:37 So my number six is going to be super quick because we've already touched on it. My number six of the not so great tech would be the crypto craze. Bitcoin was pre 2010. But a theorem kind of brought wallet, online trading all that kind of good stuff to the forefront because it was something other than just Bitcoin. It's a mess. Kevin 53:57 So that's a good one. I'll just quickly transition to my number five positive and I'll just throw it out there as the gig economy so if you're a god damn magician, car driver whatnot the power is is did you Bob 54:17 say magician? Yeah Kevin 54:18 because the reason I said I'm watching on Netflix it's Bob 54:22 Oh my son watches that one the magician's right Kevin 54:24 well, there's a button no not not that one's on CW but there was one on Netflix. It's called, like, magic for humans or something. And it's like he actually mentioned in there the gig economy, you can basically get anyone to do anything on the internet these days. Whether it's, you know, back in the day when you're growing up, it's like, you can hire a band, you know, you have this like sketchy part of Craigslist. Well, that's come out and they're their apps. I mean, when I was at your there's an app for that when I was at your place, you had like three or four options of people who will bring you food to your house. Yeah, guess how many cats Has well we still have pizza hut and Papa John's that's about it and I don't think this qualifies gig economy, right? Bob 55:07 Nope, not so. Alright, so that was your number five good? Yes. My number five good basically encompasses a lot of stuff we talked about today 4g LTE networks that came of age in the 2000s which made a lot of this digital communication streaming from your phones possible so Kevin 55:30 that figure that was a really big that might be on my list that might be on my list of the a quick one. Okay, so 4g definitely did change it and I'm patiently frickin waiting for 5g because while sometimes I will use my 4g hotspot do work and or do a podcast with you. 5g is where I think I need to be for the whole house because I don't think my 4g phones gonna handle that. Bob 55:57 So now melted. Kevin 55:59 Yes. So that's good. Alright, moving along here. Bob 56:03 Number five bad or five bad net Kevin 56:05 neutrality. So good one net neutrality for the lay person is a topic that came up a couple of years ago, basically the current administration, FCC head said, you know, what, no longer are these protections in place? What protections were they? You say, Kevin? Well, what they are is let's say your internet provider wanted to throttle slow down your Netflix, because you're doing a lot of binge watching or whatever, Bob 56:36 before net neutrality, or because large corporate interest, wanted more bandwidth and paid for it. That's yourself. Kevin 56:42 That's it. So So net neutrality protected us. But those rules got rescinded. And now it is possible that you can be throttled unless you pay to play right. Bob 56:56 Yeah, tinfoil hat guy and me says we've always been throttled. Kevin 56:59 Yeah. How do you check that right? Bob 57:02 Yeah, exactly. All right. I think we're back to the positives. Nope. My number five negative. You've just got the ping pong game all wrong. My number five negative. You've already brought it up. Mine was DNA kits for the masses. Yeah, so don't do it. We don't we Yeah, we don't need to be testing our DNA, who who cares? Who cares where we're from? Who cares what we might die? Well, Kevin 57:24 it's a pseudoscience really Anyway, I've read so many articles were there. Who knows if what the information they're giving you is any were true because you can be, say Jewish as a race or a Jewish as a religion. You can be from the Middle East, but your skin color you know, I mean, there's just so many combinations and it's just doesn't make sense. Plus, the Pentagon just recently put out a warning saying, hey, if your God member you shouldn't be submitting these DNA tests for for security reasons. Bob 57:59 That's got to be One of the biggest red flags I've ever seen it's just such a data grab so gross right all right, all right, so your number four good one he might Kevin 58:09 crap your parents, but I'm gonna loop in AI ml and neural nets. Oh wait Bob 58:16 as a good one Kevin 58:17 toes you're gonna crap your pants. So actually, this one kind of rides the line for me between good and bad and I've got a few of those. So I was watching the YouTube series that I pass along you which is only three to three episodes before YouTube Bob 58:33 I was gonna say it's paywalls right only Kevin 58:35 the first three episodes are free but after that they want money and sorry YouTube, you've already you're already profiting off me somehow someway. But fucking drug dealers. One of the cool things in there was a guy a former Tennessee Titan football player had ALS or has ALS and they use speech recognition type things to help learn how he talks now. Excuse me versus how he used to talk Like press conferences and things like that. And now they can translate him very well. And I was like, that's what ml Bob 59:07 is. Wait, so they can translate him in his own voice basically. Yes. Kevin 59:11 So he's very well, that's beautiful. That's cool. He's very difficult to understand in real life now. But they can, they can go both ways they can, okay, he can say something now, and it can just do text, or they can also replay in his own voice, which is amazing. That's pretty awesome. They also have it where somebody has lost a limb and they have the Luke Skywalker hand where you know, you move these things in your arm and it knows then it learns you as a person on how to move it. Because previous attempts at like limbs, specially hands hands are very complicated is well how do we make this work for everyone? Well, you don't that's the problem. Everyone is wired kind of a little bit differently. And if you leverage machine learning, to kind of figure out you know, the nuances A few and hey, that work that didn't and adjust on the fly. That's great. And so that's where I think it's super. That's great noble, where I'm not so hot on AI and machine learning is like self driving cars. I really think that's just you know, I know. That's just a waste of time. You know, we're, you know, I just read the other day, Tesla hat was involved in another autopilot death, you know, where the car was an autopilot and killed some people. So, of course, yeah, Bob 1:00:30 but still, they've got like, hundreds of thousands to go before that's really an issue. Kevin 1:00:35 Right? I mean, the the easy defense of that is Yeah, and so and so died from dear, you know, crashes and that's human control. So what's your point carry Bob 1:00:46 on? Yeah, on that same day, 3000 people probably got killed by regular people driving. So Kevin 1:00:53 what I'm getting at is, I don't put auto or self driving cars at the top of the machine learning like to do list I put right mbts I put people who have medical, I put that high up. So that's why when I, when I see like, hey, there's this new self driving car and it's blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that's great and all but is that changing humanity? I mean, getting rid of effect. Yes. We're saving you from the tyranny of driving a car. Ooh, you know, that's, that's really not high on my list of things we need. Bob 1:01:26 I'm telling you though, next year when I get my cyber truck, I'm getting it with the autonomous mode. Alright, moving on. That is an upgrade. Kevin 1:01:35 Alright, so we are on Bob's number four positive, Bob 1:01:39 right my number four positive also spooky. You already had it ride sharing gig economy apps, basically, where's my number four. So Oh, the ability to have a system in your pocket where there's thousands of participants where you can pretty much good anything you need on because they're volunteering to be in the system. So Kevin 1:01:58 the only notable thing there is With the gig economy comes the obvious potential exploitation by the overlords running the apps. Yes. Lyft Uber, I think are the two that are considering unionizing or you know, there's there's issues there. And then the other one is with YouTube, YouTube's not really a gig economy unless you look at it through the lens of Well, I'm a performer Raiders Bob 1:02:21 kind of our Yeah, Kevin 1:02:22 so yeah, so there's exploitation potential there. But Bob 1:02:28 what I think the technology to make that open for pretty much anyone to participate in that economy is the bonus part. Maybe the way it's executed is not but the ability the technology is open that door. Kevin 1:02:42 I think that's pretty Yeah. And let me tell you, Airbnb if we're considering that also a gig economy that is a huge huge plus thing I'm, I'm going to Disney World for the second time, or third time with an Airbnb because it's just way better than doing a hotel. So Bob 1:02:58 we always look for the Yes, Airbnb places to quirkier the quirkier the better. Alright, so your to your number four bad Kevin 1:03:09 Cambridge Analytica. That's my number four. Bob 1:03:12 Wow, that's really far out. We thought it'd be higher up. I thought it'd be closer number one Kevin 1:03:20 yeah, it gets pretty crowded here. So Cambridge analytic if you're not very up on that there's a Netflix documentary called I think it's the great hack if I'm, Bob 1:03:31 yeah, okay, I did an episode I Kevin 1:03:32 did an episode on it. And basically, we're all suckers and it will be a component of one of my to a component of two of my top three negatives here in a bit. But Cambridge Analytica basically exposed how much data is the new oil. I'm channeling my inner Bob Baty buyer right there. Bob 1:03:56 That's his data is the new oil that is trading. That's right. Kevin 1:04:00 So I'll just leave it there. I don't have time to explain Cambridge Analytica, I, I don't think you would disagree with you. Maybe you went to high No, Bob 1:04:07 not at all. No, my it's actually higher up on my list, but I don't disagree at all. My number four bad is an old guy rant. It's Instagram, Snapchat and tick tock. I just can't keep up with all this shit anymore. Like I was very active technology dad, and introduce my kids to Facebook and Twitter and kind of introduced them to Instagram and then Snapchat and tick tock all kind of blossomed on the scene in the 2010s. And I just can't keep up with all the different interfaces and what's the expectation how the content supposed to be formulated and delivered. It's just it's too hard. So that was my number four bad. It's just the rise of all these little micro networks. I still don't understand Instagram Stories dependent and people have explained it to me over and over and over. I just don't get it. I consume them pretty regularly because I think they're a good think they're good platform for consumption. But to have to make an Instagram story I struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real as the kids. Kevin 1:05:07 Alright, we're back to the positive right? Bob 1:05:09 Number Three positive for you, Kevin. Number three. Kevin 1:05:13 Actually, this one's a mixed bag too. But it's gonna be like, Oh, I guess that is the thing, hashtags and the like button. Bob 1:05:21 So Oh, that's a continuation of my old guy ran. Yeah. So Kevin 1:05:24 hashtag, you would think that non tech users getting the them to use hashtag would be really difficult. But humans seem to know how to use hashtags nowadays. And the like button while it's positive is is it's a quick feedback. What I don't like about it is the ambiguity of not pushing the button. Does that mean people don't like the post? Or does that mean people haven't seen the post? And that ambiguity is by design, right where it's like, well It's not that people don't like it. Maybe they didn't see it or whatever. What do you think? Bob 1:06:04 Yeah. Well, that I think that not seeing it, especially with all the stupid algorithms that these different networks have. I think that's a big possibility. I'm always, like perplexed by someone will post something that, especially on Twitter, actually Instagram too. So they'll post something that is actually kind of sad and not positive. But you want to show that you support them somehow. But your only option is to like the fact that they put something really sad there. Yeah. So I do like that Facebook has a little bit more wider range of things. But yeah, I do struggle with that a little bit. Kevin 1:06:43 Yeah. Do you think Twitter Instagram will adopt the multiple emoji reaction? Bob 1:06:50 I don't know. Would Facebook come out and say against Twitter like No, we've patented that. Kevin 1:06:56 We've patented the for emoji response or whatever it is now. Bob 1:07:00 That's interesting. And then you'd have to remember what the equivalency is between the platforms. See, that part just pisses me off. Kevin 1:07:06 There's there'll be an app for that. Don't worry, old guy rant continues. All right, your number three positive, Bob 1:07:13 my number three positive. Actually, I struggled putting this as low as number three, I wanted it to be closer to one. But there's so many, I guess I didn't have so many good things. My number three positive was the Apple Watch and fitness trackers in general. Apple Watch kind of came to the largest prominence early in the 2010s. Wit

(NSFW) Nathan has special guest Grant on AA! On Saturday, October 5th around 4am, Nathan and Grant made the horrible decision to curate an episode of Almost Adequate! A whole bottle of whiskey later, Episode 21 was created! Topics include Breaking Bad's new sequel, pyramid schemes, how Nathan endorses everything.. for free, and Yahoo Messenger in the 8th grade! Music by What's Left Of Us: http://bit.ly/2H2LHHn Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Starting with an unlikely meeting at a fraternity probate party, Mia and LaDarrell met through a friend he had already tried to talk to. This episode explores that meeting, the loss of a 61 million dollar lottery ticket, where they are now, and a few critical points in between. This introductory episode from the Hopkins' is like the beginning of a roller coaster; slow, rigid, and exhilarating. We are glad you decided to Hop into Healthy Relationships!!!

In this episode our hosts Sandy and Chaitu discuss about how they were introduced to Social Media right from the start of the era of Yahoo Messenger, Orkut and till today's TikTok.

Yahoo! Messenger merupakan salah satu aplikasi permesejan popular pada suatu ketika dahulu. Walaubagaimanapun, sejak populariti aplikasi permesejan pada peranti mudah-alih, Yahoo! Messenger kian dilupakan pengguna. Minggu ini, ia turut menyaksikan aplikasi berkenaan ditamatkan operasinya.

On "Altered Geek," Steve is flying solo to talk about Intel's 28 Core 5 GHz CPU, Samsung's 32GB DD4 memory, Secure HTTPS SSL in RSS Feeds and Websites, Yahoo Messenger going away, Google Podcasts, Cell Phone Planning, Alexa in Hotels, and Digital Licence Plates. All this and more on Altered Geek!

On "Altered Geek," Steve is flying solo to talk about Intel's 28 Core 5 GHz CPU, Samsung's 32GB DD4 memory, Secure HTTPS SSL in RSS Feeds and Websites, Yahoo Messenger going away, Google Podcasts, Cell Phone Planning, Alexa in Hotels, and Digital Licence Plates. All this and more on Altered Geek!

Yahoo Messenger gets sunsetted; AT&T, Sprint; Countrytime Lemonade give legal support to home grown lemonade stands; Facebook Bug; Apple Class Action Lawsuit; Older Apple hardware won't run Mojave; Coolest things in iOS 12

Kogan's latest business venture is smart home devices Microsoft is giving Office 365 a facelift Apple to block tool used by law-enforcement to crack iPhones Microsoft ends forum support for Windows 7 and 8.1 End of an era: Yahoo Messenger is being shut down next month Instagram May Soon Allow Hour-Long Video Uploads Addicted’ girl, 9, wets herself instead of taking break from playing Fortnite

Kogan's latest business venture is smart home devices Microsoft is giving Office 365 a facelift Apple to block tool used by law-enforcement to crack iPhones Microsoft ends forum support for Windows 7 and 8.1 End of an era: Yahoo Messenger is being shut down next month Instagram May Soon Allow Hour-Long Video Uploads Addicted’ girl, 9, wets herself instead of taking break from playing Fortnite --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aussietechheads/message

There is a lot of news this week. Flat Earth believers hold a conference, you can just imagine. GameStop attempts to sell comics. End of an era: Yahoo Messenger is shutting down. So much going on. Enjoy. Random Roundtable: Comments on a dating app XBOX Rampant Suicides Headlines- Steven: These Are Not Fans Adam: DC Universe Details Steven: GameStop to Sell Comics Adam: Tesla Autonomous Car Involved in Accident Steven: Instagram Posts to Share Adam: Xbox One Will Support Alexa and Google Assistant Steven: DC President Leaving Warner Bros. Adam: Valve Says They Will Stop Policing Content on Steam Steven: Yahoo Messenger Shutting Down Adam: Microsoft Drops A Data Center into the Ocean What the Actual Fuck! (WTAF): Steven: Flat-Earth Conference; Hilarity Ensues Adam: MIT Creates SkyNet Wanna Donate to our Beer Fund: Donate to our PayPal Venmo: @thelazygeeks_1010 Contact Us: Blog: https://thelazygeeks.com/ Email: themailbag@thelazygeeks.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelazygeeks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelazygeeks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelazygeeks/ YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/Thelazygeeks --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thelazygeeks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thelazygeeks/support

IHOP changes name, Sonic adds pickle juice slushie, Madden 2019 comes back to PC gaming, Workday buys Rallyteam.....#news #business #ihop #ihob #food #tech #pcgames #games #uber #lyft --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dollarsandcents/support

Jefferson Graham runs down the week's top tech headlines for the week ending June 9th, highlighted by Apple's WWDC conference, the new Amazon Alexa TV controller and goodbye Yahoo Messenger.

Google’s lays out ethical principles for AI development, Facebook has another privacy issue (again), why the next generation of gaming consoles might be the last, Yahoo Messenger logs off, and the weekend long-reads suggestions. Stories from: @sundarpichai, @terrortola  Links:AI at Google: our principles (Google)Can Google keep its promises on building ethical AI? (Engadget)Airbnb says forced to cancel bookings under new Japan law (Asia One)Ubisoft Believes Next Gen Is the Last for Consoles as Microsoft Looks Beyond Platforms (Variety)Chat Wars (N+1) Longreads:‘I can understand about 50 percent of the things you say’: How Congress is struggling to get smart on tech (Washington Post)The Twitter crime mystery that gripped Spain (BBC)Meet the people who still use Myspace: 'It's given me so much joy' (The Guardian)Exploring The Digital Ruins Of 'Second Life' (Digg)Why Aren’t We All Buying Houses on the Internet? (Slate)

Tema del día, La Vida Antes Del WhatsApp WhatsApp ahora permite compartir nuestra ubicación en tiempo real y próximamente vamos a poder tener videollamadas grupales. Eso nos lleva a hablar de como era la vida antes de WhatsApp, recordamos la historia de ICQ, si tenes 20 años, no vas a saber que es esto. ICQ fue creada en el 96 por la empresa israeli Mirabilis, tenías un ID NUMÉRICO, muchos se los sabían de memoria, los ID cortos se vendían y caro, ej 4444, ya que a medida que aumentaban los usuarios aumentaban la cantidad de dígitos de los ID. En el 98 se vendió a AOL por 300 millones, y fue la gran caída, sale Yahoo Messenger, pero lo peor vino de la mano de Microsoft en incorporar por defecto msn en Windows y más tarde en el 2004 Skype. Para fines de los 2000 la compro una empresa rusa, mail.ru donde hoy es muy popular en Rusia y Europa del este. Podemos decir que hoy #ICQ esta anunciando que va a soporta llamadas y tambien el servicio de IFTTT. ### Noticias 27/10 sale el nuevo iPhone, pero tambien sale STRANGER THINGS , eso nos lleva a recomendarte un servicio #MOVIESANYWHERE un servicio en el cual vas a poder ver todas las películas que hayas comprado en internet sin importar en que tienda lo hiciste. [Welcome | Movies Anywhere](https://moviesanywhere.com/) Por último hacemos una mini review del iPhone 8 recibido el ultimo domingo, mientras esperamos el nuevo iPhone X. No dejes de escuchar todos los podcast de la liga en laliga.fm y de seguirnos Twitter @BairesMac y @davicitoloco, Instagram @BairesMac, o suscribirte en: Audioboom https://goo.gl/Y0IB1S Spotify https://goo.gl/zxKbTz iTunes https://goo.gl/hsysH2 Google Play Music https://goo.gl/wHc2NC Stitcher https://goo.gl/S9CV5Y iHeart https://goo.gl/Z80h1w TuneIn https://goo.gl/IFwWC6

An interview with Neo Ighodaro, co-founder of Laravel Nigeria and CTO of hotels.ng Notes: Neo's Earliest drawings Laravel Nigeria Hotels.ng Building the Laravel Nigeria Community With Over 200 People Attending the First Meetup Neo speaking at Laravel Nigeria - Deploying Your Laravel Application Lagos CreativityKills Greymatter Mark Essien, founder of Hotels.ng FlashDP Kohana framework Prosper Otemuyiwa ForLoop Neo in a black hoodie Transcription sponsored by Laravel News Matt Stauffer: Welcome back to Laravel Podcast, season three. This is the second interview, episode three, where we're going to be talking to Neo Ighodaro, big man around town in Laravel Nigeria. Stay tuned. All right. Welcome back to Laravel Podcast! I've got to figure out how to number these things because technically, this is episode three because the first one was a preview, but that confused a lot of people, so welcome back to the second interview of season three of the Laravel Podcast. I have my actually relatively recent friend with me. His name's Neo, and I've been pronouncing it Ighodaro the whole time. Is that actually how to say it? How do you say your name? Say it, not me saying it. Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, you're actually saying it correctly. Matt Stauffer: Could you say it, though? I want to hear you say it. Neo Ighodaro: Okay. Natively, the "g" is silent, so it's more like I-ho-da-ro, but a lot of people call it Ighodaro and I kind of feel more comfortable with Ighodaro because it sounds better, in my opinion. Matt Stauffer: So, if I tried to say it without the "g," you'd actually prefer I say it the way I just said it? Neo Ighodaro: With the "g." Matt Stauffer: Okay. I have some friends.. one of my friends whose name is Al-bear-to ... I don't even know the Spanish pronunciation. Neo Ighodaro: Alberto. Matt Stauffer: I would try to learn how to say it, right? "Al-bear-to." He's like no, no, no. Just call me Alberto (pronounced like an American) and I was like, "But that's not your name," and we had kind of this big back and forth and what he ended up saying was, "When an English-speaking person says it in an English sentence, I prefer it to be the English pronunciation, and then when a Spanish-speaking person says it in a Spanish sentence, I prefer it to be the Spanish pronunciation." I've never heard anybody say that before, because I'm always like, "I don't care. I want to pronounce your name the right way," but for me, more important than the right way is what you want, so I'm here. I'm with you. Neo Ighodaro. It's fantastic to have you on. If anybody hasn't heard about Neo before, the way that he has most primarily been known in the Laravel world is because he is one of the three organizers. I don't know ... who's the founder? Are all three of you the founders, what are you the founder and now three of the organizers? How does that work? Neo Ighodaro: I and Prosper basically are the founders, so we just got together and started it. We decided to get people on board, so Lynda was the third person. Now, we have a couple of other people who are silent organizers, but they help out every single time we have a Meetup. Matt Stauffer: Okay, and by the way, I didn't actually finish my sentence before I asked you one because I interrupt myself. The "it" that Neo and I are talking about is Laravel Nigeria, which is this kind of Meetup, but it's kind of a conference, because it's as big as all the other Laravel conferences, even though they're calling it a "Meetup," but people are traveling from five hours away. It's a really big deal, so we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later. But what I told Neo beforehand was, "This is not actually about that Meetup. This is not actually about you being the CTO of a big tech company. What this really is about is knowing you as a person and what you're about," and if anybody listened to the Taylor interview I did before, we didn't talk so much about Laravel. We talked for a little bit about just kind of Taylor and where he comes from, so maybe we'll down the road there, but the tiniest little bit of context, he's one of the two founders. He's one of the three formal organizers, and there's also some silent organizers of Laravel Nigeria. If you haven't looked it up, I'll put a link to a write-up that he did in the show notes, but you're just seeing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people once every couple months come together and teach and learn. There's actually a couple of your talks that are online, so I'll make sure to link a couple of those that I think Pusher's hosting. You can hear him speak. You can see what he's organizing. He's the CTO of Hotels.ng, which is a really big tech company out of Nigeria and y'all are in Lagos, right? Ah, pronunciation. Neo Ighodaro: We're in Lagos. Matt Stauffer: More of them. I've been saying "lay-goes" like "go," but then last night, I looked it up and they said "lay-guhs," not "goes", so is that another one? Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: Oh, I'm murdering these things. Neo Ighodaro: Lay-gas, yeah. Matt Stauffer: I also, several times when we were first talking, I would refer to Lagos as if it were only a city, not knowing it was both a city and a state, so it's kind of like a New York, New York thing, right? Like New York is both a city and state, Lagos is also a city and a state. Now I know these things. Neo Ighodaro: Yes. Matt Stauffer: The tiniest bit of context, and I want you to teach me a little more, because basically over the last week, I've been Wikipedia-ing all these things, is that Nigeria's the biggest economy in Africa and then Lagos is the most significant economy in Nigeria. Then Lagos city is such a significant economy that it would have been one of the biggest economies in Africa just as a city alone, and it is the twentieth largest economy of any city in the entire world. This is a significant thing because I think a lot of folks, they understand some general names, some general locations, some general cultural concepts of various African cities and states and countries, but I don't know if they have that much context, understanding that this is a huge place. Are you actually in the city, or are you in a different city in the state? Neo Ighodaro: It's kind of hard to explain, but- Matt Stauffer: I figured. Neo Ighodaro: Lagos, as a whole, like you said, is a city and a state. It's a city and a state because it's quite small geographically. It's really small, so you can't really call it a state and it's so small that you can't not call it a city, I mean, and it's so small in the sense that you want to call it a state because officially, it is a state, but I mean, it's just so small for you to call it any other thing. Matt Stauffer: Now, is it like Singapore, where if you're in the state, you're also in the city? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Pretty much. Matt Stauffer: I assumed that there were other cities within the state? Neo Ighodaro: No. Matt Stauffer: So, if you're in Lagos the state, you're basically in the city? Neo Ighodaro: They're just ... we like to call them local governments. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: They are like small, small, very tiny, little regions that you can probably drive like one hour across each region, so it's kind of like a big- Matt Stauffer: But all those regions are within the city? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: Within the city slash state. Matt Stauffer: Okay, so it is a little bit like Singapore in that way. When I think of big cities, I spent a couple years living in Chicago, so I think about Chicago as being a very large city, so Chicago has three million people. It has, I think, I'm trying to remember how many square ... 230 square miles and so Lagos has 16 million people and it has, I think 400 and something square miles, so we're talking many, many, many times the size of Chicago. Also, it's a city, it's a state, and it's all these kind of things, so I think just getting that kind of out of the way and understanding those things helped me a little bit of the context of why when I was like, "Oh, yeah. You're in Lagos," you're like, "Yeah, but" ... We've got to talk a little bit more than that. -So, you are in Nigeria. You are the CTO of Hotels.ng. You are doing all this kind of stuff, so let's actually get to the meat of it. First question: When did you first have access to a computer and where was it, and for what reason? Neo Ighodaro: I would say when I was about 13. Back in the day before internet was quite popular in Nigeria, it was really, really difficult to get your hands on a computer, so I think one of those cybercafes. They're not really cafes in the sense of it. It's just basically a shop where you have a bunch of computers and then you pay some amount of money to get access to those computers to use their internet. I think one of those days, I was about 13, and I got some extra money and I just went to the internet. It was mostly to chat, though. Matt Stauffer: What was the chat protocol that y'all used back then? Neo Ighodaro: I think Yahoo Messenger was very popular then and MSN- Matt Stauffer: I remember that. Neo Ighodaro: Or one of those ones. I was always on them. Matt Stauffer: Did they have computers in your schools at that point, or not until later? Neo Ighodaro: It's kind of tricky because we did have computers in the school, but it was not computers for everyone. It's privileged access at the computer. Matt Stauffer: Really? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. It was horrible. Matt Stauffer: I told you beforehand that you get to tell me when I'm digging too far, but- Neo Ighodaro: No, it's fine. Matt Stauffer: What privilege gives you access? Is it a particular type of study or something else? What privileges someone to get to use the computer? Neo Ighodaro: Back then, the first thing is ... we had this computer science subject, basically, where we had to learn about computers, but they usually just write it on the board and like, "Okay, this is a CPU. This is a disk." Was it disk? Did we call it disk back then? What's the name of that thing, the square thing where you save stuff? Matt Stauffer: The hard-drive? Neo Ighodaro: No, no. The one back in the day, so you have this thing- Matt Stauffer: Oh, you mean a floppy disk? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Floppy disk, so they'll tell you, "This is the floppy disk," and we never saw any of them. We just had pictures and then- Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: Once in a while, maybe once in an entire term, they'd be like, "Let's go to the computer room," and then we go and we see them. We don't touch them. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: You're actually forbidden to touch them. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: You see them and they're like, "Oh, that's the CPU they were talking about. Oh, it looks so cool," but looking from five meters away like, "Yo. Don't touch it." Matt Stauffer: Now, why was it that you couldn't touch it? Was it because there were so few that they were precious, or was there something else going on? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. It was more like a new thing back then, so they were pretty expensive. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: And they didn't really trust kids back then, so- Matt Stauffer: Understandably. Neo Ighodaro: If you became a prefect, for instance, we have this thing where certain students, depending on your academic abilities or your leadership skills, you become a prefect, so to speak, and then you'll be able to have access to certain things that other students didn't have. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: As a prefect, I was able to have some access, limited access. Matt Stauffer: But it was still very limited, so it was really the cybercafe that gave you the space to do what you wanted to do. You started out chatting. When did you transition from chatting to thinking that you were going to be able to create something? Neo Ighodaro: I was 15. I remember very clearly the day. It's actually a kind of funny story. I was subject to some bad people in school and I wasn't really keen on going to school at that point because they were always bullying because I was very little in school. They were always bullying and at some point, I was like, "You know what? Screw this, man. I can't deal," and then I started going to cybercafes. Instead of going to classes, I'd just go to cybercafes. I mean, I'm not happy about it, but it was sort of- Matt Stauffer: It's what it is. It's your story, so ... Neo Ighodaro: One of those days, I decided to check out an internet café and that was it. I just liked going there. I felt safe there. I could literally just bury myself in whatever I was doing and not worry about anything else. Matt Stauffer: That's really cool, so you spent more and more time there, even skipping class to go there. You were chatting originally, but what was the moment or was there a project, or what kind of piqued your interest in creating something on the web? Neo Ighodaro: I don't really remember the thought process, but I remember thinking at some point ... I saw this one guy. He went to the café to, I don't know what he was doing there, but I saw him typing some random stuff and I was just like, "What is this guy doing? It doesn't seem like English." It just looked random. I walked up to him and I was like, "Hey, dude. Sorry, but what are you doing?" and he was like he's learning how to program. That was the moment I just thought, "Okay, program. What exactly is a program?" I'm not sure if Google was a thing then, but I know I was using Yahoo Search a lot, so I tried to Google and I stumbled upon the word HTML. One thing led to another and I started thinking, "Hey, how is yahoo.com actually made?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I started digging and I find out, "Oh, okay. You need something called HTML." I had no idea what it was, and I was like, "I could probably learn that instead of chatting and wasting my time"- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"I could probably learn how to make HTML." That was pretty much the thought process and one thing led to another. I just kept on going and finding out more about HTML. I literally did not know the meaning. I didn't actually care. I just wanted to learn the thing. Matt Stauffer: That's fascinating, so you learned enough that I'm sure you were making your own little local HTML things. Do you remember what the first page you made was about? Neo Ighodaro: Oh, it was a personal page, obviously. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: A site called uni.cc or something like that. It was one of these Geocities type of thing- Matt Stauffer: Sure. Neo Ighodaro: Where you just go and then they give you a sub-domain and a name and then you just kind of mash up the HTML in there. I created one of those and I remember there was this guy. I've forgotten his name, but he was a really big influence back then. There was the time of Greymatter. I don't know if you've heard of it? Matt Stauffer: I haven't. Neo Ighodaro: It was a blogging platform. It was close to what we have in WordPress, but it was called Greymatter. I think his name is Tony. He used to create all these blogs and then there were a lot of young people and they had a lot of blogs that they created. They create these blogs and then they just write random stuff in it, but I was more interested in how the blogs looked. They looked so beautiful and I was like, "Why does mine just look like a bunch of marquee running around the screen?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was forced to learn design, so I had to start digging in. I heard about Photoshop, so I picked it up. Matt Stauffer: I love that you got there because when we first met, I went over to CreativityKills. Would I be right to describe CreativityKills as essentially your freelance web development kind of company? And I don't even know freelance, but your web development consultancy that was your main thing before you started working at Hotels.ng, and you still kind of keep it running on the side? Is that a good description for it? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, pretty much. Matt Stauffer: What I noticed there ... I went to portfolio, and the moment I see ... I think it was portfolio or work or something, but what I saw instead of code or descriptions, was I saw screenshots. The moment I see that, I say, "This person's probably a designer," and the design was good too, so you're not just a programmer. Tell me how do you think of yourself? Do you think of yourself as a designer and a programmer? Have you trained in one more than the other, or do you think of yourself as a hack in one and really good at the other? How do you kind of approach your skillset? Neo Ighodaro: I think to really answer the question, I have to go a little back to the origins. Like I said, I learned about you have to design your sites for it to look good. I was like, "How do I get there?" and I heard of Photoshop. I started going to the cybercafes. Instead of learning how to write HTML, I was learning how to design, so it was a hassle, to be honest. It was really difficult because you had 30 minutes to learn, literally 30 minutes to learn everything you wanted. I basically started learning and a couple of people just noticed that I come regularly and some people just randomly gave me some extra time. Matt Stauffer: Oh, cool. Neo Ighodaro: I was able to pick up a couple of designs. I actually have a link to one my first ever designs. I still have- Matt Stauffer: That's going in the show notes. That is going in the show notes. Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. It took me about 12 hours chopped into 30 minutes- Matt Stauffer: I was going to say, 30-minute increments of 12 hours, and it's not as if you could take it home. I mean, once the 30 minutes is up- Neo Ighodaro: You're done. Matt Stauffer: Did you have a thumb drive that you were saving everything on, or how did that work? Neo Ighodaro: I had a floppy disk, so every time I go, I was like, "Does this computer support floppy disk?" If they were like, "No," I was like, "No. I'm not doing this." I actively looked for a computer with a floppy disk and I had to download Photoshop- Matt Stauffer: Every time. Neo Ighodaro: Every single time. Matt Stauffer: Oh my gosh. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: Oh my gosh. Neo Ighodaro: It was hectic. Matt Stauffer: That's incredible. Neo Ighodaro: Pretty much. Matt Stauffer: You taught yourself how to design, so both in terms of design and HTML, I'm assuming that ... because I know that when I started, there weren't a lot of books around teaching this. Were you learning it purely online and, if so, do you remember any of the sites you used to learn? Neo Ighodaro: I remember the site I used to learn how to make my first-ever graphic, but I don't think I really learned any of the other ones, I mean, the tool sets and everything, using any site online. I was basically just "mash, mash, mash." It's "mash, mash," and it worked, I'm like, "Oh." Matt Stauffer: View source, copy, paste, modify. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Something like that, so I was just editing. I would just pick a tool and drag it across the screen. I was like, "Try to figure out what does this do." But the first night I learned about actually making vector images was vexiles.net. I don't know if they're still around right now, but it taught me how to take a picture and turn it into a kind of vecto graphic. Matt Stauffer: Trace it with the ... what are those things called? The pen tool and everything like that? Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: Very cool. I think that's pretty similar to how I learned. I remember I got my first book when I was five or 10 years into it and it was such a foreign process because I was like, "Wait. I have to sit down and read 50 pages and then" ... It just didn't translate. I was like, "No. You just kind of figure it out as you go." You started programming when you were 15. I'm guessing the design was a little bit later than that. At which point did you realize this was not just something that was just a fun thing to do with your time, but it was something you were actually going to consider turning into a career? Neo Ighodaro: I think I was about 17 or 18. That was when I actually creating the skills unofficially. I had a couple of friends back then and they had these really nice names for their website. There was Aether Reality.net. They just had really, really random names and I was like, "I could come up with one," and I don't know. I can't remember exactly how, but I was thinking in the lines of, "What if you had a company that portrayed designs to die for?" I sort of just circulated around that concept until I got to the point CreativityKills. I can't remember how it clicked or when I clicked, but I just know at some point, I was like, "Creativity kills." It kind of had a negative connotation, especially culturally, but I felt like people needed to ask questions like, "Well, how does creativity kill?" It kind of was the one thing that I knew could make my brand stand out, because people became curious. Matt Stauffer: I love that. It doesn't give you all the answers just from reading it. It makes you ask questions and that's something you wanted. I mean, that clearly lines up with the story you're telling me is you literally walked over to somebody else in the café and said, "What is that jumble you're typing into your screen right now?" That's really fascinating. Did you have any people around you or any role models where you said, "Oh, I'm going to do this like that other person I know or that other person I've seen," or was it more of a just kind of, "Hey, this is a thing I can try out and see what happens"? Neo Ighodaro: For design, yes. The Tony guy, I really can't remember his name. I wonder why. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: But anyways, the Tony guy, I think I still have him on Facebook or something. He didn't know it, to be honest. I was just more of an admirer from afar type of person and I really liked how he designed and everything, so he was sort of my role model in design. But when it came to HTML and PHP and the other program language, I didn't really have anybody. It was just me. Just me and nobody else. Matt Stauffer: At some point, you went from, "What is this computer and internet thing?" to "What is this coding thing?" to "What is this design thing?" to "I know these things well enough that I could make things" to "I know these things well enough that I could convince someone else to pay me money to do it." Those are a lot of shifts to happen over the span of, I think, two years basically. There's not a lot of other people around you who are doing kind of development consultancies and design consultancies and stuff like that, so how did you figure it out? What were your early challenges? Who were your early clients? What did it look like for you to create CreativityKills and turn it into actually making income? Neo Ighodaro: I had to figure out every single thing myself. I didn't know anything about marketing. They didn't even cross my mind, to be honest. When I started, I created a website for it. I don't have the template anymore, but I was proud of it then. I'm not sure I would be now. Matt Stauffer: Right, right. Neo Ighodaro: I had this lady. She wanted to create a website for her NGO and she met me. She heard of me from my friend, so my friend told her, "Oh, I have this guy. He's probably be cheap and he does websites." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: She was like, "Okay. Let me meet him," and I talked to her. She told me, "This is what I want. This is what I want," and I was like, "Okay, cool." Back then, I only knew HTML to be honest. I didn't know PHP and so I was like, "How do I swing this?" I then went to a cybercafe again and I started Googling, no, I was Yahooing, basically- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Because I don't think I was using Google then. I was trying to figure out, "How do I make a website as dynamic?" and I think that's where I stumbled upon PHP. Somebody was talking about PHP and CGI scripts and all the stuff and I was like, "This seems like something to go into." Then I had about two months, so I gave a deadline of two months to deliver the project, so I had roughly about a month to learn PHP. PHP just jumped at me. I was like, "Let me just go with this one." I heard of ESB. I heard of a lot of ones, but PHP just seemed welcoming. I mean, that's the allure of the language, anyways. I was like, "I'm going to do this," and I jumped on it. The learning process was difficult. I didn't pick it up in one month. I actually just knew a bit, a few things, because of 30 minutes increments, 30 minute, 30 minute. At some point, I stumbled upon Greymatter and WordPress and then I was like, "Okay, so this kind of makes you build a website easily. I could do this. I mean, it doesn't look so complicated." I had to figure out how to host websites, so I hosted her website. I paid for the domains and everything and then in about two months, I came and said, "Hey, look at your website," and she paid me. I was so happy, like, "This is my first income. I did it alone." It was a happy moment for me, but from then on, I started feeling like, "What if I could take that one client and kind of expand my reach, try to reach other people?" I mean, one person old one person, so obviously, there's some sort of system to it. I started digging about SEO and I started digging into marketing and that's pretty much ... one thing led to another, and most of the things I learned, I had to learn because when you work to a certain degree, you hit a bump. Then you're like, "What to do next?" and then you get introduced to certain concepts, and then you learn about that. Then you hit another bump, and, then, "What do I do next?" That was pretty much my learning phase. I just kept on hitting bumps. Initially, it was the HTML. Then I was like, "The HTML has to look nice," so I had to go to CSS. "Now the visual aspects have to look nice," so I went to Photoshop, then I went back to HTML. I realized that you can't really do much with HTML. You need some dynamics. I went to JavaScript and it was really, really difficult, so I left it. I heard of PHP. I went to PHP and I realized I have to go back to JavaScript. I went back to JavaScript and then to Jaggery. It was just- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: One thing leading to the other. Matt Stauffer: Yeah. You do what you can until you hit a pain point and then you figure out the simplest possible thing to fix that pain point and then move on to the next pain point. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: Very cool. You were writing procedural PHP back then. This is pretty early. I'm guessing it was right past when WordPress was created. You got WordPress. You got into Greymatter. Did you spend just a couple years there, basically building HTML and CSS websites with some Photoshop design and some WordPress and some Greymatter? Is that kind of your bread and butter for a while before you made shifts over to things like Laravel? I mean, Laravel, obviously came out much later than that, but did you kind of sit in that space, or were there other kind of steps in your journey between then and Laravel? Neo Ighodaro: No. I sat there for a while. I really didn't think of structure or anything. I was there for a long time, probably a year or three years, between that range. I remember the first time I got introduced to CodeIgniter. I learned about CodeIgniter and I didn't really understand what MVC was. In my mind, I just wanted to write spaghetti code and be done with it, but I started seeing the benefits I made of separating concerns and I felt like it could help eventually. I mean, all those things I've created, plus it's a framework. It gives you a jumpstart and that was really what sold me. I didn't have to write my skill connect to this or my skill connect to that, I just put my details and I'm done. I got into CodeIgniter. After a while, I started ... my learning of PHP started evolving from spaghetti code to "How do we structure an application?" Then I started, and this is very interesting, actually. Because I didn't have a laptop or a PC. Laptops were a stretch. I didn't have a PC then. I had to do this thing. I decided to write a framework of my own, but I had just 30 minutes in a cybercafe, roughly. Matt Stauffer: Is this still a floppy disk that you're using, or is this what you're about to tell me? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, yeah. A floppy disk, so what I did was I bought a diary and I literally wrote my code in ink- Matt Stauffer: No. Neo Ighodaro: On the diary. Matt Stauffer: No. Now why couldn't you just save it as HTML files and PHP files down in your floppy disk? Neo Ighodaro: Let me explain. I had a couple of minutes, where if I'm going to ... let's just say, maximum, an hour and thirty minutes at the cybercafe- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: That's when I have access, but I don't want to go there and start thinking of what to do. Matt Stauffer: Oh. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly, so my solution to- Matt Stauffer: You're writing in the diary when you're not at the cybercafe as your brain is roiling over. Oh my goodness. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: That's amazing. I mean, I've done architectural diagrams in a journal and I've done the tiniest little bit of code, but writing a framework that way? No way. So, you basically show up, and the first thing you'd do is basically transcribe all your diary notes down into code and then see- Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer:"Hey, did it work?" Wow. Neo Ighodaro:"Did it work?" "No." "Oh, bugs, bugs, bugs. Fix, fix, fix, fix, fix. Oh drat. I forgot this." Matt Stauffer: Wow. Fascinating. Neo Ighodaro:"Yeah. I got to go home. Just log out. Go back home." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: And write, write, write, write, write, write. Matt Stauffer: And write more in your diary. Neo Ighodaro: There was this thing. Nigeria's a very cultural state and then there was this day my mom stumbled upon the diary. She thought I was writing a lot of demonic stuff. She was like, "Oh my God." Matt Stauffer: Oh, no. Neo Ighodaro:"What is all this?" She literally thought I was possessed. Matt Stauffer: It's funny because I was going to ask about your family, so this is perfect. What did your family think about this whole thing? You're skipping class. I mean, I don't know if they knew you were skipping class, but you're doing these computer things. You're in the cybercafes all the time. Was that something that you got a lot of support for, you got a lot of criticism for, or were they kind of ambivalent, they weren't sure how to feel? Neo Ighodaro: A lot of criticism. An African family is a family that places a lot of value on education, so me skipping school then was horrible. I was literally the black sheep of the family just instantly. The day they find out, they were so disappointed. "How could you do this? Blah blah blah," and I was just staring, like, "Sorry." Then they were like, "We're really, really disappointed," and everything. Then the day they saw the writings on the book was my mom, she freaked out. She thought I was on some demonic tick and she was like she's going to call an entire family meeting, so the entire family gathered and they were like, "What is this you're writing?" Matt Stauffer: Oh, no. Neo Ighodaro: And I was not good enough to explain it, so I was just like, "It's code." "It's code for what?" And I was like- Matt Stauffer: Right, right. Yeah. Code as if ... "It makes computers work." Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, so I couldn't really explain it and they were like, "We don't want to ever see you doing this again," and I was like- Matt Stauffer: Oh my gosh. Neo Ighodaro:"Yeah, sure. Right." But I knew, deep down, I wasn't going to stop. Matt Stauffer: How long did it take for you- Neo Ighodaro: I think that was one of the few things that- Matt Stauffer: Oh no. Go ahead, go ahead. Neo Ighodaro: Really made me continue to really fight for it, just because I felt like it made me a rebel. Matt Stauffer: I love it. How long do you think it took before they really kind of understood, or do they now? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, they do. It took a long time, until I was in the university, actually, and they started seeing some dividends like it was paying off. They were like, "Okay. This dude hasn't called us to ask for pocket money or anything, actually." Matt Stauffer: Right, right. Neo Ighodaro: They were like, "He probably is doing something right," and then they were like, "Okay, so what is this thing exactly?" Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: They were willing to come to the table and ask me questions like, "What does it do? How does it work?" Matt Stauffer: Very cool. Neo Ighodaro: Then there's this thing in Nigeria, so there are internet fraud stars a lot. They scam people of money and blah blah blah, but the idea is back in the day, when they see you, any young person in front of a computer, that is the instant thing they think, that you're a fraudulent person, that you're being ... they called it a "yahoo yahoo boy." Matt Stauffer: They call it ... can you say it again? It didn't come through on Skype. Neo Ighodaro: Yahoo yahoo. Like "yahoo" twice. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: So they call you a yahoo yahoo boy. They were really concerned that that's what I was doing. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: They really wanted to know because it was illegal and they didn't want any of the stuff and I was like, "No. I promise it's not actually that. It's literally the opposite," and they sort of just went with it. I don't think they really believed. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: They just had faith, so I guess they started to come around from there. Matt Stauffer: That's fascinating and that transitions to the university. At some point, you were doing CodeIgniter, and I assume that was before university. At what point did you decide to go to university, or was this all happening at the same time? Neo Ighodaro: Pretty much at the same time. After they found out that I'd been skipping school, I had to change schools, so I had to go to another one somewhere closer that it could monitor my movements and- Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: It didn't really stop me, actually. I did what I wanted to do anyways. The good part was I was sort of book smart to a point- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was able to ace my exams and everything. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: That was the good part, so I didn't really need to go to school, because I knew if they found out that I didn't do a couple of tests, they would probably come and check the attendance sheet and everything. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I made sure I aced most of my tests, most of my exams, but on the low-low, I was still trying to figure out what this entire programming thing was about. Matt Stauffer: All right, so you went off to ... what did you actually study in university? Was it programming, or was it engineering? What was the actual formal title of it? Neo Ighodaro: Mathematics and economics. Matt Stauffer: Is that something you use in your daily life right now? Neo Ighodaro: Nope. Nope. Matt Stauffer: All right. Well- Neo Ighodaro: Very big no. Matt Stauffer: Well, yeah. I mean, I studied in English education when I was in school. I mean, technically, I don't use it, although the experiences I had there still inform me today. All right, so you went to university. You graduated from university. You got that degree. At what point did you transition from being Neo of CreativityKills who does kind of freelance contracting stuff to Neo who is, I mean, you're doing stuff out in the community. We'll talk about that in a bit. You're working at Hotels.ng. Now, I did see you had a blog post, I think it was in maybe 2016, so was this a pretty recent transition for you? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Pretty much. Matt Stauffer: What was that like? Neo Ighodaro: Let me step back a little. I'll tell you another interesting story. Ever before I owned my first laptop, how I got it was there was this guy, Kolade, he had a friend who wanted a programmer on one of their projects and then it was like, "Neo, you need to get on this," and I was like, "You know I don't have a laptop." He was like, "Okay, you know what? I'll tell them. They'll get you a laptop and then we can go from there." I was like, "How do I pay for it?" They were like, "No, don't worry." I was like, "Okay, cool." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was so excited, but I just wanted to play it cool. Be cool, be cool, be cool. Then they brought the laptop and it was ugly. I appreciate it. Matt Stauffer: Right, right, right. Neo Ighodaro: I mean, I still have it. Matt Stauffer: It's a laptop. Nice. Neo Ighodaro: I appreciate it, but it was horrible, meaning if you unplugged the laptop, it would go off. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: The battery was finished. It was literally horrible. Matt Stauffer: It was like a big gray box kind of thing? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, and the problem with that was the situation of power in the country. You could literally go for an entire 24 hours without power at all. The internet was so expensive, but, I mean, somehow, I was able to manage. I had to go to school a couple of times. There's this hub where you could plug your stuff in. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: I'd go there and plug. I remember some of those people always laughing at the laptop, like, "What is that?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was like, "Just ignore them. Just ignore them and do what you need to do." Fast forwarding, I had a sort of big break, right? It was during the period where BlackBerry was very popular in Nigeria, so I created this website with PHP. I think that's actually the first product I've ever created for myself. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: It was called FlashDp. What it did was it used ImageMagick to create a GIF and then you were able to use that GIF as a display picture on your BBM, BlackBerry Messenger. I did it because ... back in the day, because I wasn't too rich. Let me rephrase that. I was poor, so I had to find a way to make money at least. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I found out people really like these GIFs and I used to create them on Photoshop a lot and then I thought about it, like, "There has to be a way to do this in PHP or some language." I was like, "Let me try." I sat down that day and I used Kohana. I don't know if you know it? Matt Stauffer: Yeah, yeah. Neo Ighodaro: Kohana framework? So, I used it and I came up with FlashDp and I gave a friend ... I was hosting it on Pagoda Box, so I gave a friend, like, "Hey, help me try this stuff. See if it works," and I went to bed. The next morning, the server had crashed. Matt Stauffer: Oh my gosh. Neo Ighodaro: I was like, "What is happening? What happened?" Then I went to analytics and I check. "Wow. A lot of people used it," and because it was very resource-intensive, I mean, it was ImageMagick trying to- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Generate images over and over again, so I was like, "Let me try and reboot the server." I didn't really know about servers then, but it was a click and reboot thing. I decided to create another version two. I decided, "Let me just give everybody, make people use it." Right? Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I mean, it doesn't hurt. Then I gave people and I just put AdSense on it, and that was literally one of the best decisions I've made ever, because in the space of ... so I created it 2013 and in the space of about a year or two, I made about $37,000. Matt Stauffer: What? What? Just from AdSense? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. And in Nigeria, that's huge. Yes. In Nigeria, that's huge. That was huge money, so I was able to get my first MacBook. I was able to get a nice Mac and literally that point was the turning point, because I had all the tools I needed. I didn't need to write in a diary anymore. Matt Stauffer: Right, right, right. Neo Ighodaro: I could practice it without need for power for a long time at least. I literally had everything I needed to actually become better and I felt so empowered. That was around the period when I was in school, so I had a lot of time to myself. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: A lot of time to learn, a lot of time to actually go back, and that's when I started redesigning CreativityKills again. I went back to the drawing board and I was like, "How do we appeal to people?" I spent about eight months creating that site and I released it. I think it was on adwords.com for an honorable mention or something like that. Matt Stauffer: Nice. Neo Ighodaro: I was really proud of myself. I came out and I did it. It was crazy for me, but creating FlashDp itself was the turning point. That was the landmark in everything. Matt Stauffer: That's incredible. I feel like I could dig into just this part of your story for another hour. I'm trying to keep this short. I'm going to move on, but that is fascinating. You said that was 2013, so at that point, you had gone from CodeIgnitor, you had moved over to Kohana. Let's move into modern Neo. Let's move in to Laravel. Let's move into the Laravel Nigeria Meetup. Let's move into Hotels.ng. When did you transition from Kohana to Laravel and what made you make that transition? Neo Ighodaro: FlashDp made me make the decision. It was around this period where people were arguing about whether to use static methods or not, and I started feeling bad about Kohana because it had a lot of static methods. I was like, "Is there something out there that's better?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I mean, obviously there might be, so I started digging and I found out about I think was it FuelPHP? I think Slim. I don't know if Slim was really around then, but I know I saw a bunch of them and I heard of Laravel and I was like, "I like the name." It has a ring to it. That was literally the only reason why I jumped on it. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Wow. Neo Ighodaro: I just liked the name. It was like, "I could try this," but I think it was around version four, around that period or something like that. I was like, "How does this work? I mean, it's usually the usual MVC stuff." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was like, "This seems cool," and I realized that every single thing I did was easy. You want to do this? Easy. You want to do that? Matt Stauffer: It just works. Neo Ighodaro: Easy. Yeah. I was hooked. I was like, "I'm sold." It was hard for me leaving Kohana, because I had built a lot of packages back then. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I built a Honey Pot module or Coconut. I forgot on what they called them, but it was a package for Kohana then, so I was kind of tied to the community, but I felt if it's better with Laravel, I could just try it. That was my switch. I created version two of FlashDp using Laravel 4. I just basically kept on digging into Laravel and digging and digging and digging. I also picked up Objective C during that period. Matt Stauffer: All right. Neo Ighodaro: I got an iPhone and I learned to jail break in. I learned you could create awesome stuff using a language called Objective C, so I pretty much dived into it and started learning Objective C, creating jail break tweaks, and all that stuff. Matt Stauffer: Very cool. Neo Ighodaro: Now, my transition into being Neo ... I had this thing where I said I was never going to work- Matt Stauffer: For someone else? Neo Ighodaro: For another company. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: But I realized that if I was to run any successful business, you need experience. It goes without ... you just need it. I was like, "I need to pick the right company." You just don't jump into it, right? Matt Stauffer: Yep. Neo Ighodaro: From, I think, 2015, I started scoping the Nigerian tech scene. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"Who would I want to work for?" I was nobody. I wasn't really known. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: But I knew I was good, so I started digging and digging and I found nothing, to be honest. I found nothing that I felt I wanted to work for until I think 2016. I was still in Benin. I schooled outside Lagos, by the way. I was still in Benin and I went to a school called University of Benin. That's UNIBEN. Then I sort of heard of Hotels.ng and I didn't really think much of it. I hadn't heard much about it, so I was like, "Meh." Then I had a friend called Lynda. So, cool story, she was the friend of somebody I knew back in the day, so my friend had been telling me, "Okay, Lynda, she's really good. She's really good." I was like, "Who is this Lynda? Who is she?" I went online and I researched and I heard she was the head of product at Hotels.ng and so I just pretty much said, "Hi. Oh hey, how you doing?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Then we got to talking a little and then we kind of just hit it off pretty much. We were just talking and talking. Then I think I told her that I'm looking for a gig or something. I can't really remember the backstory, but I remember receiving an email. I came to Lagos because my mom had an accident. Matt Stauffer: I'm sorry. Neo Ighodaro: A very, almost mortal one. She was in a sickbed for a long time, so I was really sad. I came down to Lagos and went to see her in the hospital. It was a very bad, very depressing moment in my life, but, I mean, coming back gave me some sort of perspective on life, like, "Things don't last forever. You need to use whatever you have as quickly as you can," so I think I sent an application. I'm not really sure if I applied or not, but I remember receiving an email from Mark Essien, he's the CEO, and he was like, "Hey. I heard about you from Lynda. Can you come to the office for an interview?" My initial reaction was, "No," but I thought about it. Matt Stauffer: Even though you had sent something in to them, right? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Then I thought about it. I was like, "You know what? It doesn't hurt. Let me just go." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: That was literally my first interview ever. Ever. Matt Stauffer: Ever, anywhere? Neo Ighodaro: I was about 20-something then. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: Twenty six-ish? And I was like, "Let me just go." I went and- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I remember him sitting in the office with three devs. Lynda wasn't around. I think she was on leave then. It was like, "What are these? What are these?" and it was calling computer science terms. I really didn't know any of them and I was like- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"If this interview's to go like this, I'll literally fail because I don't know any of these terms. Give me a laptop." Matt Stauffer: Do you say that out loud? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, I did. Totally. I didn't know any of these terms. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"Just give me a laptop and I will show you what I can do." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Then he looked at me for a minute or so and then it was like, "Okay." Then he left and then sort of, I just felt like I'd already gotten the job. Then he left me with the devs and they kept on asking me different questions, like, "This, that, that," and then one of them was like, "I think I've seen your CreativityKills somewhere." I was like, "Ha, sold." Matt Stauffer: Brilliant. Neo Ighodaro: Then he was like, "Yeah. Can you show us stuff you've done?" Then I brought in my laptop and then I showed him ... I had this music site I created using Angular and PHP backed in on Laravel. I showed him, and the first thing he was like was, "Do you design your code?" Because it was so cleanly written. It was during a period where Jeffrey was always talking about, “small controller, thin controllers, this, that. Best practices, SOLID. This, that," and he literally asked me, "Do you design it? Do you sit down and format your code?" I was like, "No, not really. Maybe I have OCD or not. I don't know." But he was really impressed at the structure of the code and I was like, "Wow. He's never seen anybody designing this, like your code. You just write code. It makes no difference to the compiler, you know?" Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I was like, "I like to see my code as art. If I feel good about it, I feel happy, but I just don't want to jumble everything. He was like, "Cool." I think that was the day I got the job. I hadn't even gotten home and I got another email saying, "You're hired." He was like, "Can you start tomorrow?" and I was like, "Okay." Matt Stauffer: All right. Neo Ighodaro: It was a big leap. That's right. I literally- Matt Stauffer: You were hired as a programmer upfront, right? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, as a programmer. I hadn't even settled with the fact that just got my first interview. I already had my first job. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I decided to go in and what really caught me was the culture. I've always had this culture, this ideology of what I want CreativityKills to look like and I literally saw everything right there. It was there, and that was what sold me. Everybody seemed so compact. It was a very good mixture of fun and work and that was literally what made me stay. Matt Stauffer: That's very cool. And Mark's very young too, right? It's not as if you're- Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, he is. Matt Stauffer: Joining this kind of giant, pre-existing thing. It was other people with a kind of same young Nigerian "figuring this out as we go" kind of mindset. Neo Ighodaro: Exactly. Matt Stauffer: That's awesome. All right, again, I want to ask you an hour of questions about Hotels.ng, but because we're getting close on time, what I want to do is to talk about a few things real quick. First of all, we're going to talk about the Lagos tech scene, because you mentioned about how you looked around there, and it obviously exists, but I would guess that when you first started, there really wasn't much of a tech scene. I want to hear your thoughts on that. I want to hear your thoughts about the Meetup, and then the last thing, I want to hear about hoodies. Let's start with the Lagos tech scene. When you first started, you said there weren't a lot of people around you that you could look at. There weren't people who you were saying, "That is this person in my town who I want to be like. I identify with that person and I want to be like them," so do you have any thoughts? Did you watch transition happen where all of a sudden, there were other Laravel developers around you and other tech companies? Do you have anything to share with us about what that growth process looked like? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. When I started, either there was nobody, but they were there, but social media- Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Wasn't as prevalent as it is now, so I didn't really notice or see anybody. But the first person I did notice was Prosper. I just knew he was making a lot of noise. He's very, very energetic. He can shout, so he's an energetic person, and I kind of noticed him. I was like, "Who is this guy?" He was always saying, "Community, community." What is the community? What is it, exactly? Matt Stauffer: Right. Right. Neo Ighodaro: There is no community. I'm not seeing anything. He just kept on going and I was like, "Maybe there is a community after all," and so getting to Hotels.ng kind of gave me a lot of ... because Hotels.ng is kind of a big scene when it comes to tech. We like to support tech a lot, and it kind of gave me ... it's almost like I swallowed something and now my eyes were opened, and I sort of saw that there was potential. There were a lot of people, but there was just no real leadership. People were not just organized, but the people were there. It's just like Lego blocks. They were there, but nobody could put them together. Matt Stauffer: Got it. Neo Ighodaro: That was literally how I noticed, and I realized that what Prosper was trying to do was to get people to come together. Matt Stauffer: Very cool. Neo Ighodaro: And create that actual community that he was shouting about. That was when I realized that it's possible for us to create something that would kind of unite every single hungry developer, for any developer that's been hungry for knowledge for a while, we can unite them and people could come out and give speeches. Then we did a lot of research on Meetups and conferences. From there on, it has been up, up. I've just been noticing that. People have just been waiting, literally, for someone to start, and once there was that spark, it just happened so quickly. Everybody was, "Meet up here. Meet up here. Meet up here." Right now, as I speak, they're having a G2G Summit and a bunch of others. Next week, I have about ... the entire week is literally booked up. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: I have a talk in Android Nigeria and there are a lot of Meetups coming up everywhere. Matt Stauffer: So, this is all pretty recent? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, yeah. I would say about three years, two years. Matt Stauffer: Because I mean, I follow you on Twitter and I see you posting stuff about a Meetup or a conference, it feels like every week, you're at a different place meeting new people. So this is all just a couple years old, then? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Matt Stauffer: Did I hear you right in saying it's not that that tech scene wasn't there, but it was very kind of individualized, like people were really kind of in their own world? A lot of people probably have a pretty similar story to yours, where people are figuring it out on their own and just recently there was ... Prosper helped. You helped, and probably other folks helped realizing there's a lot of potential if we bring all these people together in one, and all of a sudden, they're exploding. So, I'm seeing you nodding, but I asked you a question. Is that a safe way to say it? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, yeah. That's literally how it happened. Matt Stauffer: What do you think the thing that kicked that ... could you point to a single Meetup or a single person or a single event, or were there a lot of them kind of all starting up at the same time? Neo Ighodaro: I might be wrong, but I would point at ForLoop. There's this Meetup called ForLoop. It was started by Ridwan. I think he was one of the first people that started the entire Meetup thing. I might be wrong again, but it was the one I notice- Matt Stauffer: Sure, but from your perspective. Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. It was the one I noticed first and it kind of had the ideologies that most Meetup outside the countries have, like you just get a bunch of coders to come to the table and just talk about new tech. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: That was literally my first Meetup, so I was like, "You know what? I want to speak at ForLoop." That was literally my first ever talk, so I spoke on Docker and I was like- Matt Stauffer: Cool. Neo Ighodaro:"Let's see how this goes," and it was really successful. I mean, we're having not as much numbers as we have now, because it was just starting out, but that was the first Meetup I've heard of from my own perspective, so I think that was the turning point for everything. I will literally say ForLoop. Matt Stauffer: Do you remember, when you first spoke at ForLoop, when that was and how many people there were there at that point? Neo Ighodaro: I'm not too sure about when, but I know the first one I attended, because we hosted it in my office. We used to host Meetups at the Hotels.ng. I think there were about 80, between 50 to 80 people. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Neo Ighodaro: To us, that was big numbers. We really thought we- Matt Stauffer: The Meetups in my local town don't get that many people most of the time and they've been going for years. I mean, and you've noticed people are getting excited about Laravel Nigeria. I mean, part of it is because you never heard of it at all, and then all of a sudden, you've got 400 people and you're running out of space for people to sit. The rapid success that you've seen ... you say you don't remember, but it was at your office, so it had to have been within the last year probably, right? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah, definitely. Matt Stauffer: Yeah, so this is very, very, very recently. I mean, you went from attending ForLoop the first time with 50 to 80 people. You went from speaking at ForLoop for the first time. You went to helping kind of Prosper and Lynda and others create Laravel Nigeria. For it not existing at all, to all of sudden having hundreds and hundreds of people and running out of space and we're all talking about the span of basically the last 12 months or less. This is a pretty incredible growth process and that's why people, they're saying, "Wait a minute. Where did this all come from?" And that's why I asked the question about the tech scene. It didn't come out of nowhere, but the organization that gave the space for it to be seen and to for it to be brought together seems to really happen quickly, but what it did was it touched on something that's been there for a long time. Right? Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. Matt Stauffer: It's individuals. It's an entrepreneurial spirit. It's the desire to do all these things and the motivation to do it even when you only have 30 minutes at a time, even when you've got rolling power black and stuff like that. There's something. There's a reason where a lot of people keep saying, "Whoa. Keep your eye on Nigeria," so that's ... I mean, again, I could talk a whole hour about that, but I'm trying to keep everything short here. All right, so we talked about the Lagos tech scene a little bit. We talked about the Meetup a little bit. I do want to hear you give a pitch, where if somebody has never heard of Laravel Nigeria, give me a pitch about what it is and I asked you a lot of questions when we first talked about well, where people are coming from and what are your timelines and what are your goals, and all this kind of stuff. So, tell me a little bit about the Meetup. Tell me a little about where it is right now. When's the next one going to be? What are the things you're excited about? What are the things you're nervous about? What are the difficult and exciting parts about doing it? Neo Ighodaro: I remember when I thought of Laravel Nigeria initially, it was around December 2016, and I talked to Prosper. That was one of our first few conversations, and I was like, "What would it be like if we had Laravel in Nigeria?" I initially called it, I can't remember the name, but I called it something different. It was like, "You know what? That seems like a good idea. Why don't we do it?" I had zero knowledge on Meetups, like zero. I literally didn't know where to start, and they were like, "Okay." Then we kind of just didn't do it, so January passed. February passed. March, I can't remember when we did the first one, but all of a sudden, I just woke up one morning. I was like, "Let's just do it," and then I called him. I met him at a café, Café Neo, funny enough, so there's a café in Nigeria called Café Neo. Matt Stauffer: Love it. Neo Ighodaro: I met him there and I was like, "Guy, we should do this thing, but I want to speak in pidgin." Pidgin is a weird form of English that we speak in Nigeria here. Matt Stauffer: Really? I had no idea. Neo Ighodaro: Yeah. It's called pidgin English. So, I'm like, "Guy, we could do this thing now." Literally saying, "Guy, let's do this stuff." Then he was like, "Okay. How do we start?" Then I was like, "We should create a Meetup page first." He was like, "Okay," so I tried doing my card and it didn't work, so he did. His card worked, and he created a Meetup page. I created a Twitter page. I started working on the website. Generally, I just noticed people were joining the Meetup page and we hadn't really started talking about it. We just put a couple of things there and say, "We might be hosting a Laravel Nigeria Meetup." Might. That was the word, might. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Then people were like, "Oh, this is great. This is great. This is great. This is great." The Meetup page was just going higher and I was like, "What is happening?" Then that kind of put pressure on me to actually do the Meetup. Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Because I was kind of nervous that it would fail. I remember telling some of my colleagues at work that, "I don't know if I can actually do this. I mean, it's huge." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"It's a huge thing. I don't have the money to sponsor it, but how would I do it?" Then someone was like, "Just ask for help," and I was like, "That kind of makes sense." The strategy I did was I went to the Laravel source code itself. I was like, "Okay. What companies are generally interested in Laravel?" I mean, that would be the companies that are more likely to support, right? Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: I looked and I saw Pusher. I saw Nexmo and a couple of others. I was like, "Okay. Pusher, Pusher." Then I spoke to ... I think around that period, I just started guest-writing for them, so I messaged someone in their team and she was like, "That sounds great." I was like, "Cool." I didn't really believe it. Of course, she was like, "Yeah, sure." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro: Back then, we had about a hundred people who RSVPed and I was feeling like it wasn't enough, but she was really, really, like, "Oh my God. A hundred?" I was like, "Yeah." Then she was like, "That's huge. We will support." I mean, that's the journey. We started getting people to support the entire thing. We couldn't use Hotels.ng space because 100 people, it wouldn't fit, so we talked to Andela, which is a company that outsources developers to bigger companies and I think Facebook invested in them recently. I talked to them and they were like, "Yeah, sure. Why not? I mean, we're all for the community. Yay," and I was like, "cool." So, we had that. If I was to tell someone about Laravel Nigeria, I would literally say from my own perspective, it's the belief that you can bring something out of nothing, the belief that you don't have to know about it to be able to do it. You just need to take the first step. Nobody's perfect at anything, and Laravel Nigeria was a shot in the dark, granted, but it was a lot of hard work and that shot paid off. I mean, it might have not paid off, but it did. I wouldn't have known if I didn't try, yeah? Matt Stauffer: Yeah. Neo Ighodaro: What we try to do now is tell people, "Hey, talk to everybody. Try and get people in remote communities, because right now Lagos seems like the place where a lot of things are happening." Matt Stauffer: Right. Neo Ighodaro:"We want people from other states. Mobilize your people. Try and get people to attend Meetups." In the past one month or two months, I've attended Meetups in places where I didn't expect people to come. I'm like, "Wow. Okay. Crazy." This is viewed as a state where you're like ... I didn't expect so many people to come out. People were out, and I was like, "It's happening." Laravel Nigeria is literally the belief that there are a lot of people out there. There are a lot of people who want it to happen. There are a lot of people who are hungry for this knowledge, a lot of people who already know, but just need a platform to come out and start speaking. This has given them a lot of them hope and a lot of that platform they need to really come out and be leaders, because that's what we want to create, a lot of leaders that can lead the new generation of developers, basically. Matt Stauffer: I love it. I've said a thousand times I could talk for another hour. I can't, but I'm going to wrap it up with just three

Ladies and Gentlemen, the battle begins! If you've ever wondered, "what does his family think of this?" ... this is the episode for you! There is some joviality scattered throughout, but trust me...this is a fight. It's about as "nasty" as we get.   Sometimes my family doesn't understand me. Sometimes I don't understand them. And when this happens, we fight! This is the rawest episode we've ever done.    Our fights don't usually result in broken furniture (though Timothy can share a story sometime) but we occasionally need to clear the air. Feelings get hurt. Apologies need to be made.   Tabby and Tim are upset at Peaches and me for the way we talk on the podcast. And the way we write the blog. Tim and Tabby are 'feelers'. Peaches and I are 'thinkers'. This is the basis for the blow-up.   Tim doesn't think I should mess around in the blog comment section (sorry Carl). Tabby doesn't like the conversations splashing over into 'family time'. We drink some of Andrew's Sangria soda pop.   It's a good discussion since the T's (Tabs and Tims) articulate exactly the criticism that comes from other Christians about what we do. It kind of stings, frankly.   The T's accusation is that we enjoy making people look foolish. We merely view the commentary as entertainment. Tim's term is, "Battle Buddies". Tabby raises a pretty good point with Mandy's beef about J.K. Rowling.   Eventually, we have to figure out if it's worth it to say true things when it's going to cost you friends. And what, exactly IS the end goal?   Some squabbling breaks out because I promised food and didn't deliver (but I did).    Everybody starts talking at once and it's hard to hear anything but I think I get called out for being an old guy who doesn't understand how the internet works. The kids defend the folks who argue with me.  Also, I'm mean.   Tabby summarizes her wishes. It's hard to hear but she's expressing her feelings. (I'm ALWAYS uncomfortable when feelings are expressed...)   Tim still thinks we're 'ineffective'. Tim doesn't need Mandy's help. We get a phone call so Tim makes fun of me for still having a phone at home.   Then we blow Tim's mind with the idea that some people are just not going to like us and we're okay with that. Then I tell my sewer analogy which doesn't seem to impress everyone as much as I thought it should.   Tim and Mandy fight about the Pony Express (essentially). There is an odd question from Tim and he doesn't like Mandy's answer. It appears that without Yahoo Messenger, Amanda would still be single.   Then Tabby observes that we don't poop rainbows. Tim thinks I'm a douche.   Farkas family exits but not before everybody talks over each other again.   Tim and Mandy go back and forth for awhile. It is amazing how these two came from the same set of parents! In the end, we're going to be okay I think.    

What is it like to be a CTO? This week Paul and Rich talk to two former chief technology officers: Camille Fournier, who was previously at Rent the Runway, and Kellan Elliott-McCrea, who was previously at Etsy. They discuss the CTO’s role within a company, share experiences from the trenches, compare managing engineers versus managing CEOS, and swap stories about the most colossal technical outages that happened on their respective watches (Kellan took down Yahoo Messenger; Camille ruined everyone’s Thanksgiving).

Opa! Opa! Tá aí? Saudações nostálgicas, queridos amigos, ouvintes seguidores da Velha Máquina! Houve um tempo, antes do grande boom das operadoras de telefonia móvel, antes da internet wi-fi, antes do Facebook. Houve um tempo onde WhatsApp não existia, onde emojis e emoticons eram novidades, onde uma nova língua, o internetês, ganhava forma. Houve um tempo, onde a forma de comunicação mais comum, acessível e viciante eram os messengers e bate-papos! E é com muita nostalgia, bom humor e diversão, que os podcasters mais zueiros e pirados da podosfera embarcam em mais uma incrível viagem no tempo, voltando até a aurora da internet, para relembrar os bons e velhos tempos do boom dos bate-papos virtuais! Junte-se aos Machines nessa incrível jornada e relembre como foram importantes em nossas vidas o MSN, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, as salas de bate-papo e muito mais! A Velha Máquina não para! Se segura na poltrona, apertem os cintos, preparem os teclados, e borá lá! MACHINECAST CHAMOU SUA ATENÇÃO! MACHINECAST CHAMOU SUA ATENÇÃO! MACHINECAST CHAMOU SUA ATENÇÃO! MACHINECAST CHAMOU SUA ATENÇÃO!

Hoy en Data te presentamos el nuevo smartphone de la marca ZTE, el Blade A1 que te sorprenderá lo que incluye por su precio, el regreso de Yahoo Messenger, los nuevos servicios de Facebook y el rumor del iPhone de 4 pulgadas

The purpose of this study is to identify several areas of forensic interest within the Yahoo! Messenger application, which are of forensic significance. This study focuses on new areas of interest within the file structure of Windows Vista and Windows 7. One of the main issues with this topic is that little research has been previously conducted on the new Windows platforms. Previously conducted research indicates the evidence found on older file structures, such as Windows XP, as well as outdated versions of Yahoo! Messenger. Several differences were found within the Yahoo Messenger's registry keys and directory structure on Windows Vista and Windows 7 as compared to Windows XP. About the speaker: Final year PhD student in Cyber Forensics in College of Technology. Completed my under graduate studies in India in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering. Completed my Masters from Oklahoma State University in Telecommunications Management. Got interested in the filed of Digital Forensics in my last semester at Oklahoma State University after taking a course in Digital Forensics. Area of interest is social networking in teens, forensic investigation.

The purpose of this study is to identify several areas of forensic interest within the Yahoo! Messenger application, which are of forensic significance. This study focuses on new areas of interest within the file structure of Windows Vista and Windows 7. One of the main issues with this topic is that little research has been previously conducted on the new Windows platforms. Previously conducted research indicates the evidence found on older file structures, such as Windows XP, as well as outdated versions of Yahoo! Messenger. Several differences were found within the Yahoo Messenger’s registry keys and directory structure on Windows Vista and Windows 7 as compared to Windows XP.

  iFixIt Breaks the New MacBook Pro (for Education) / Apple Insider Thinks iPad 2 Could be Out to Consumers This Week / Apple Insider Looks for What Is Missing from Lion beta / Lion beta Adds Support for Yahoo Messenger to iChat / Podcast Publisher Spotted in Lion beta / Verizon Wireless Chief Downplays Talk of Slow Sales for Verizon iPhone 4 / Wired Wonders Whether Verizon Could Ever Offer and LTE Apple Device / Consumer Reports Likes Verizon iPhone 4 but Cannot Recommend It / Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to Support Both iOS Subscriptions and Google One Pass / Gossip has Ive and Family Wanting to Move Back to UK  

В свежем выпуске: скорый выход iLife'11 и MacOS 10.7 Lion, запрет FaceTime дал подсказку о новом iPad, планшет от Apple признали гаджетом года, устраиваем видеочат по 3G, акции Apple взяли новый рубеж, подборка из трёх интересных приложений для iOS. В программе: — iLife’11 может выйти 9 ноября; — Запрет на FaceTime дал подсказку о новом iPad; — iPad стал гаджетом года; — Yahoo Messenger – видеочат по 3G; — Акции Apple взяли новый рубеж; — Mac OS X 10.7 Lion может появиться 20 октября; — iПриложения недели " Враги не пройдут, веб-браузер еще удобнее и следим за собой.

В свежем выпуске: скорый выход iLife'11 и MacOS 10.7 Lion, запрет FaceTime дал подсказку о новом iPad, планшет от Apple признали гаджетом года, устраиваем видеочат по 3G, акции Apple взяли новый рубеж, подборка из трёх интересных приложений для iOS. В программе: — iLife’11 может выйти 9 ноября; — Запрет на FaceTime дал подсказку о новом iPad; — iPad стал гаджетом года; — Yahoo Messenger – видеочат по 3G; — Акции Apple взяли новый рубеж; — Mac OS X 10.7 Lion может появиться 20 октября; — iПриложения недели " Враги не пройдут, веб-браузер еще удобнее и следим за собой.

O Papo BJPnet numero 5 esta interessante. Falamos sobre os programs de mensagens, ou comunicadores instantaneos cintando o MSN, ICQ, Skype, Yahoo Messenger e GoogleTalk, que sao os mais famosos. Falamos tambem sobre os riscos desses bate-papos pela internet e algumas dicas de seguranca...

New Google Talk beta, Yahoo Messenger 8, Who am I and IM Etiquette

New Google Talk beta, Yahoo Messenger 8, Who am I and IM Etiquette

Yahoo Messenger outage outrage, Yahoo and WLM interoperability, Tworl, Gizmo free calls, AIM Pro and more

Yahoo Messenger outage outrage, Yahoo and WLM interoperability, Tworl, Gizmo free calls, AIM Pro and more

AIM SDK 1.1, WLM goes gold, Yahoo Messenger 8 beta, eMessenger becomes eBuddy, and the future of IM

AIM SDK 1.1, WLM goes gold, Yahoo Messenger 8 beta, eMessenger becomes eBuddy, and the future of IM

A trip to Borders this weekend brought me down memory lane when I purchased a book called “Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz”. I’ve always identified with Charlie Brown, the main Peanuts character, and considered myself to be a lot like him– often teased, maligned and the butt of people’s jokes, yet always sincere and well-meaning with a good heart. Yep. That’s me. In today’s podcast I talk about my connection to Charlie Brown, the future of this show, and the wonderful week we all had this last week. (It sucked!) HEY! Do you have a high-speed connection, a microphone, and one of the following programs: Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, or MSN Messenger? Then let me know, because you could be on a future podcast! Send me an invite to your messenger list (I am rcktmanil on each of the services) or drop me a line at rick (at) rcktman (dot) com. (you know how to REALLY type that into your Email program… I get enough spam as it is. I’d love to hear from you and maybe have you on a future show! MUSIC Linus and Lucy - Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas (iTunes) You’re In Love, Charlie Brown - George Winston - Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi (iTunes) Subscribe to my PadCast on iTunes by clicking here!